The cricket and the TV wilderness

Does anyone else miss the cricket? It filled a programming hole if nothing else, and gave journalists about whose ravings we otherwise would not care the opportunity to blather about the demise of sporting behaviour. It's usually the same journalists, many seem not to care. Probably the ones covering Rugby league or the AFL.

Of course it's a TV wilderness around Christmas anyway; most of the sport has ceased and the programming is otherwise pretty dire. The networks are probably still showing 'The Little Drummer Boy'. That appalling animated or puppet show film from about 1974. I think they just repainted the 'Pinnochio' puppets and refilmed it all, adding only the quintessential 'Come they told me parumapumpum' on an endless loop as the soundtrack to drive everyone batty.

If the drummer boy went drumming in your average maternity ward he'd be summarily thrown out. I suspect the stable of Our Lord would similarly have been a drumming free zone. Now, if he had come and done some origami instead that would have been worth a look. That would have been right up there with the Three Wise Blokes who showed up with Gold, someone called Myrtle and a box of mosquito coils. Good on them, I say. Sporting conduct all round.