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David Hopps

@davidkhopps.bsky.social

Freelance cricket writer (old & on the down slope apparently) & Sri Lanka travel guru. Ex ESPNcrinfo & Guardian. Politically-exasperated, conflicted Yorkshireman, largely liberal, centre-left progressive. Great beach hotel at suitelanka.com. Leeds fan.

753 Posts874 Follower735 Folgt
David Hopps@davidkhopps.bsky.social · 21h ago

Heard more horror stories tonight about solar panels being refused in villages that happen to be in a conservation area. Is a wrecked planet less attractive than a few panels on a roof? They were told to put them on the back of the house.. it faces North you idiot, it faces bloody north.

David Hopps@davidkhopps.bsky.social · 22h ago

Nearly 5,000 packed into York for a much weakened Yorkshire in the Metro cup last week. So far maybe 9000 (?) at best in Headingley tonight for the Sunrisers. Investors in and advocates of the Hundred do not want to discuss the importance of local identity and community, but soon they might have to.

Humanists UK@humanists.uk · 2d ago

Rather than allowing humanists to contribute to Radio 4's Thought for the Day, the BBC's current format requires all speakers to frame political and current affairs commentary through a religious or scriptural lens. Yet half of the UK is non-religious so why not let us speak?

David Hopps@davidkhopps.bsky.social · 2w ago

Arguably, the only Test captain to resign in a healthy mental state in the past 70 years was Mike Brearley. Cricket captains take on so much, increasingly at a young and vulnerable age. (Compare Harry Kane whose on-field responsibilities seem to amount to little more than putting an armband on)

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David Hopps@davidkhopps.bsky.social · 2w ago

If Andy Burnham says openly that he’ll review something and then some of the media say he has promised to do it and then pillory him for a u-turn if he doesn’t, it isn’t Burnham who needs to change his approach, it’s the journalists (& their employees) who should be ridiculed for behaving like jerks

David Hopps@davidkhopps.bsky.social · 2w ago

I'm afraid a lot of them have long since jumped the shark with absolutely no prospect of them jumping back. It's so much easier to make up superficial bollocks.

Liam Thorp@liamthorp.bsky.social · 2w ago

I really think some of my colleagues in the Parliamentary lobby need a bit of a break. The reporting at the moment is so frantic and a bit hysterical. Today Burnham is being accused of a major U-turn because he said he would look at something and then said he won't move ahead with it currently.

Steven Sheil@scsheil.bsky.social · 2w ago

Taking the opportunity to repost this story (from John Boorman’s book) about how shooting the last shot of Zardoz caused Sean Connery to fall into so fierce a rage it led to a man changing his identity

Zed eventually destroys the Vortex, giving the Immortals the gift of death. He survives with Charlotte Rampling and they have a child together. The final sequence is done in a single shot with a fixed camera. Sean and Charlotte are sitting side by side in a cave with the baby. The baby becomes a child, the child becomes a youth, gets up and leaves them without looking back; they get older, then become ancient, and finally just their skeletons remain, which eventually crumble to dust. Only then does the camera move. It tracks in to a handprint on the wall of the empty cave, like the cave painting of primitive man in Lescaux, suggesting that this future world could have been in the past, and that as that civilisation ended, ours began. This shot took an entire day to shoot. The actors had to be removed and make-up applied incrementally to add the years. Sean has a delicate skin and hates make-up. He had to endure it all day. He became more and more irascible. This was the last day of shooting. We had the wrap party that night. Sean had a golf tournament to go to the next day. I had to hold him until the morning for the laboratory report. The call came at 6 a.m. There was a fault in the film stock. It would have to be redone. Sean was apoplectic. He stormed and raged, but it had to be done. We reassembled with our hangovers and started again. A long day, hours of make-up, Sean smarting from his suffering skin. Finally it was done. The clapper-loader took the magazine from the camera to prepare1973: ZARDOZ it for the lab. A few minutes later he came to me, trembling and ashen-faced. He looked so devastated, I thought someone had been killed or that the Third World War had started. I was almost relieved when he admitted that he had opened the can by mistake and exposed the film to daylight. Sean would not believe me. "Is this your idea of a joke?' he fumed. Finally convinced he would have to do it for a third time, he erupted. It was a terrifying sight. He roared, he ran amok. He went after the clapper-loader. He tried to kill him. It took four strong men to subdue him. Twenty years later I was drinking coffee in Starbucks in Venice, California, when I was approached by a man with a familiar face. I couldn't place it. He reminded me that he was the clapper-loader who had exposed the film. He had fled the country immediately after this catastrophe, changed his identity, and was now a cameraman shooting commercials in LA. As we parted, he said, with an ironic smile, but also with a trace of fear, "Sean's not in town, is he?'
Reactor Magazine@reactorsff.bsky.social · 2w ago

If you've seen Zardoz, you already know it's a wild ride; it you haven't seen Zardoz, strap in: it's time to talk about the highs and lows of John Boorman's film, featuring false gods and failed utopias, and Sean Connery in thigh-high boots

David Hopps@davidkhopps.bsky.social · 3w ago

Trump on Kane. Am I on drugs? “You've a great player in England who I played golf with. You know that...? And he is Harry who’s been fantastic. I think they perhaps made a mistake when they made him a defensive player. They took the lead and they took their best player and they put him on defence."

David Hopps@davidkhopps.bsky.social · 3w ago

Brilliant from Craig Overton but how can anybody who has ever watched Matthew Revis bowl imagine it is a good idea for him to bowl the last over of a quarter-final? Sounds from a distance like bad selection or a misuse of bowling resources when two selected specialist spinners did not bowl an over?

Somerset County Cricket Club@somersetccc.bsky.social · 3w ago

Craig Overton’s 79* (30) yesterday was the highest ever score by a number 9 in T20 cricket! 🤯 The previous highest in the Vitality Blast was Tim Southee’s 64* for Middlesex vs Hampshire at in 2017. Incredible. #YouAreSomerset

David Hopps@davidkhopps.bsky.social · 3w ago

I have just learned that Charles Dickens once described Leeds as “odious”. In his defence, that description is a good deal more succinct than his efforts in writing David Copperfield. I have now been reading it for 400 pages and - despite its gilded reputation - I am slowly losing the will to live.😩

David Hopps@davidkhopps.bsky.social · last mo.

I'm too haunted by his time at Leeds to rate him as a football coach (he would need to get to the semis at least for that!) but I respect his values. Wouldn't mind him as my CEO. Time to cut him some slack. #lufc

🍁🇨🇦Team Canada Forever🇨🇦🍁@teamcanadaforever.bsky.social · last mo.

For those who don’t follow sports and haven’t really had the opportunity to get to know Canada men’s national football team head coach Jesse Marsch, he is probably one of the few Americans who addressed the insulting “51st state” rhetoric head-on since day one. ❤️🍁🇨🇦TEAM CANADA FOREVER🇨🇦🍁❤️ 1/3 🧵

Neville Scott@nevillescott.bsky.social · last mo.

One bloke, now battered black and blue, fights through 241 balls for 100 not out; another makes 21 from nine balls before an inane shot. It is the former who will win. One WK has the skill to stand up to the stumps to fast-medium pace; England scoff at specialists. They will lose.