Planet Headingley Carnegus X, Stardate 383, Year 2981
I just don’t know what is going on out there. Can somebody explain to me how these players can claim to be tired, when they have been transported at light speed across the galaxy in suspended animation and then given three Carnegian lunar weeks to acclimatise to the oxygen-free atmosphere on this planet?
Bowlers get fit to bowl by bowling, not by teleporting themselves around the space–time continuum or having their hyperdrives tinkered with by so-called experts. When you see the ridiculous line-up of backroom droids, hundreds of them, it’s no wonder these boys are getting mixed messages. I don’t seem to remember Andy Roberts needing an antigravity accelerator or Bob Willis seeking advice from a vast supercomputer about line and length, and I honestly can’t see that these players are really benefitting from so-called technology either.
You can prove anything with statistics, as I am always telling nerds like the Benedict B5000 Scorebot, so who cares if the numbers say that averages are getting better? Correct me if I’m wrong, but this game is all about who goes out there, in space, and performs on the day and one thing I can guarantee you is this: these Austrayloborgs won’t be giving up just because their planet’s tumbled into a supernova causing the total destruction of this entire arm of the galaxy.
As for the field placings, well, I’m sorry, but it’s just a joke. I simply can’t understand why there are not one, not two, but three drones hovering over on the lunar side of the planet, and then an enormous gap here where the force field should be. I would be putting a laser-powered warp defence pike here, and an unimaginably powerful death star here, here, here, and here, and giving the Austrayloborgs something to think about.
You can talk all you want about modern methods and the rest of it, but even though I’ve been a cryogenically preserved head in a jar for over 950 years now, I’d still fancy a bowl against some of that lot out there. The techniques look very ordinary indeed, and I think it’s because they lack the mental strength we had. The latest buzz word is telekinesis: well, I was moving stuff with my mind back in 1977, and I didn’t have to pick at the seam with a bottle top to do it. Or use an electron ram.
Today, it’s all invisible force fields and jet-packs to get you through your delivery stride, and is the game any better for it? Viv Richards didn’t need to be powered with infinitely dense dark matter from the heart of the sun, and I don’t see why these modern players should be either. Sometimes, I think that they won’t be happy until the players are all robots and that will be a great, great shame.