Day: July 27, 2005

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Other

ground by ground comparison

England’s win/loss ratios for Test matches at different grounds in the past 30 years.

The stat is W/L ratio. You can get full details at cricinfo’s remarkable StatsGuru.

Edgbaston (all) – 1.57
Edgbaston (vs. Aus) – 1.00

Headingley (all) – 0.83
Headingley (Aus) – 1.33

Lord’s (all) – 1.07
Lord’s (Aus) – 0.00

Old Trafford (all) – 0.71
Old Trafford (Aus) – 0.67

The Oval (all) – 1.25
The Oval (Aus) – 3.00

Trent Bridge (all) – 1.00
Trent Bridge (Aus) – 0.25

Hmmm. Having come up with those stats, I don’t really know what to make of them.

Categories
Other

a couple of interesting articles

From Wired (via Daniel Green), an article about the economics of the ‘Long Tail’ in online sales. Apparently, over half of Amazon’s sales are books outside the top 130,000 titles – i.e. too obscure to be sold in a typical Barnes and Noble. The relevance for poetry publishing is clear, but it impacts on film and music and so on as well. And the NY Times (via Londonist) queries whether the London bombers were actually suicide bombers or just dupes.

Categories
Culture

tgpibp #3: Hockney

I’ve been finding this paintings-choosing business a bit frustrating, because in the spirit of the poll, I’m limiting myself to paintings in British collections, and many of the finest paintings I’ve ever seen in London were in temporary exhibitions. So you’ll just have to imagine all the El Grecos and Matisses and Whistlers I’m not including here.

Anyway, on to Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy by David Hockney. I think Hockney is a genuinely great artist. He’s done a lot of stylistic flitting over the years, and not all his work is equally successful, but the best of it is fabulous. The use of light, colour and composition remind me of Vermeer – they have very different palettes and rather subject matters, with Hockney generally favouring exterior scenes, but they both produce paintings of everyday scenes that have a poised, luminous quality. I went for Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, although if I wasn’t restricted to paintings in the UK I’d be tempted by various others including this one.

Categories
Culture

tgpibp #2: Rembrandt

Another one from the National and another obvious choice. Self Portrait at the Age of 63 by Rembrandt. It’s so human. This isn’t the kind of thing people normally mean by ‘minimalist’ but I think it is a kind of minimalism. The best kind, perhaps.