RIP America’s Dad
Awful news to wake up to that Bob Saget, the universally loved comedian and actor passed away overnight. For generations since the late 80s, Danny Tanner of ‘Full House’ was America’s dad and everyone who ever watched that show certainly felt his passing. I watched it when I was a teenager but revisited it again when my kids were hooked on it and I have to say Danny was an inspiration to young fathers. Helped us to understand our kids and the love, humanity and firmness that Bob Saget brought to that role was something to behold. There was no way that DJ, Stephanie and Michelle were not his kids. There was no way that Jessie and Joey were not his brothers. Those close to him will feel his absence more but we will all feel a little emptier now he has gone.
For my generation, he was also the voice of older Ted Mosbey from ‘How I Met Your Mother’. Although you never saw him on screen, just his voice as narrator of the show was soothing and calming. Telling us that even though the version of Ted we were watching on screen was a bit of a mid-20s mess, older Ted sorted it all out. Saget’s voice was able to do that. Every episode started with his ‘Kids…’ and we all just knew that whatever was going to happen in the next 21 minutes, in the end, it would be ok. RIP Bob, you are missed.
Next up the saga of No-vax the Djokovic rumbles on, now in court in Australia. The Serbian GOAT is facing being deported from Melbourne for not following the proper process in obtaining his visa. His lawyers claim he got Covid in December and so is exempt, which seems to be the crux of the issue. However eagle-eyed social media observers have noticed that the dates given by his lawyers as to when he was infected, don’t quite match up. For instance, the day they say he got the virus, he was out meeting kids, where no one was wearing a mask. The next say too he was out being felicitated for something at an event, again no one was wearing a mask. Hardly the behaviour of someone positive with Covid.
Next up Nigel Farage, the twerpiest anti-vaxxer in town, showed up in Belgrade to meet Djokovic’s brother to show solidarity for the tennis great who has fallen foul of woke tryanny on masks and vaccines. Serious Novak, its bad enough you are perpetuating anti-vax nonsense but if you are now going to sink to associating with absolute bile like Farage, then perhaps there is no way back for your image off the court. This mess rumbles on as clearly the Australian Open and the government all have added to the shit show but as sport struggles like the rest of the world to enforce vaccine mandates, you can sense battle lines being drawn. I did like Andy Murray posting that Farage meeting Serbians is a departure from his usual stance of trying to get them deported.
Finishing off this round-up with England’s dramatic draw at Sydney in the cricket. God, Test Match cricket is the best. No other format of the game brings drama like this and thank god there are places which still fight to keep the longest format alive. Yes, you could argue rain robbed Australia by cutting overs, you could also say that Cummins was hamstrung by not being able to bowl his quicks for the last few overs due to bad light but nevertheless, it was great spectacle. Test cricket is alive and kicking, if it is only given the oxygen it needs to survive.
England are specialists in celebrating not losing. No one celebrates winning like Americans but equally no one celebrates not being beaten like the English. Outplayed and outclassed for 5 days, they literally were clinging on to the edge of the abyss with just their pinkie finger before someone called it all off and then cue wild celebrations as to their survival. I do think the country’s sports team will be much better for it, if the media and fans stop romanticising these draws and near defeats and instead looks at the reasons they are in that mess in the first place. England are still 3–0 down in the series and even if they survive again in the last test, all the things that were wrong with their game in the first three matches, are still wrong. Don’t let this lucky not-a-loss, deflect from that.
