Join the new world

At some point during late August of 1798, it is said, Sir Percy Popinjay turned to his footman, and whispered the words 'that's just not cricket'. He was of course referring to the establishment of the Thames River Police by Patrick Colquhoun in London that year; Popinjay was both a smuggler and a cricket enthusiast, and was making a satirical comment on both the recent raids on cricket pitches and a new ball and bat game the Police force themselves had made popular - a derivative of cricket involving a lead ball and willow bats, colloquially termed ‘willow balls’. A term which would later become common slang for a eunuch, and later on a character in a popular television show ‘buffy the vampire slayer’.

Popinjay’s words were later immortalised by Alec Guiness in the film ‘Cromwell’, though as Charles I had never enjoyed cricket the scene did not make the final cut, however the cultural impact of this phrase remains evident. What is not common knowledge however, is that Percy Popinjay and his footman, Dave, wrote an accompanying book on the Thames Police and cricket, entitle😛

‘An entertaining discourse on Cricket, presented as a debate between a gentleman and his footman, including basic rules of cricket and a complete illustrated compendium of things not cricket, composed by Sir Percy Popinjay’ (London: 1799).

Due to a copyright suit and claims of plagiarism from his footman Dave, Popinjay had to remove his book from the presses. His counter suit on Dave instigated a trial by duel, which although not protocol for English courts by the end of the eighteenth century was something the Assize judge upheld. Both Dave and Sir Percy were killed in the duel due to intervention from the unpopular yet influential ‘Society for the reformation of manners’ girls scout wing who decided that by shooting both participants they would deny them any right to justice - an event which caused some commotion at the time ironically due to the Thames Police's allowance of the girl scouts to take firearms into a royal park. The girl scout wing of the society would later be branded as terrorists by William IV though since the 1940’s have been treated by historians as merely militant agitators.

Although no complete copy of Popinjay’s ‘entertaining discourse’ (1799) exists the accompanying compendium of things not cricket has been found in transcript form, and was sold to British Library by a certain Don Jones, a wheelwright in 1879 as part of a larger collection bequeathed to him by his great grand aunt Sven, mistress of Dave the footman. Little attention has been given to this compendium... until now.

The compendium itself begins with a note from Sven, outlining the tragic details of Dave and Popinjay’s death and her claim that the compendium was written by Dave, and not Popinjay - the cause of their falling out and an assertion which was largely assumed to be false due to the style of the footnotes which has been confirmed by both linguists and graphologists as being more likely to have come from the pen of an aristocrat. Nevertheless the compendium itself offers us an authoritative window into what is and isn’t cricket, and provides a staunch methodological and theoretical framework to judge what in modern times can and cannot be considered ‘cricket’.

The following is a list of items from both the original text and the applied theory answering some of the more common questions on what is and is not cricket.

Asking a first date to split the bill, then knowing that if he or she declines it is because they intend to pay for the second date, thus allowing you to know that they want a second date, is cricket.
This is based on the application of Cricket theory in a Machiavellian political framework which stipulates that various events can be anticipated based on polarised realities, in which it is stated that human behaviour as mapped by anthropologists has no intermediaries but instead that the reactionary nature of non-cricket players can allow for their psyche to be determined according to clearly defined absolutes, this being a reflection on the simplicity of non-cricketers.

The liberal democrat party isn’t cricket.
Based on the logic that cricket, when played, is visible and honest, the goings on of many political parties is strictly deemed as not cricket, although since the last general election the lib dems in particular have been singled out for cricketist scrutiny as they were seen to be not onely dishonest but also ungentlemanly (breaking promises, what what), two related though distinct factors which contribute to non-cricketness more than any other facet of anti-cricket existence.

Misogyny isn’t cricket.
I don’t need to justify this, it’s common sense yo.

Crickets, contrary to my illustrious rival Moriarty, are not cricket.
This is due to the ‘wicket scale’ an indexing feature of the compendium that has allowed philologists to determine that the compendium is composed on a wicket factor rating of specific events and circumstances, with 1 wicket making something not cricket, and 3 wickets making something cricket. This is a popular means of assessment amongst students of Popinjay and Dave and it has been determined that insects and arachnids have a rating of only 1 cricket, whilst amphibians and reptiles have a wicket rating of three, proving that crickets are not cricket but that crocodiles are.

Moriarty is not cricket.
This is p much written word for word in the compendium, on page 13.

Going to Portsmouth and not eating sea food isn’t cricket.
This is according to the Jacobsteinson branch of Functionalist cricket, a reactionist theory derived directly from the remaining writings of Popinjay that argues consumption should be based on geographical context. It is quoted on the walls of many kentish restaurants.

Monty Python references are cricket.
The compendium as well as contextual writings of both Dave and Percy all give the general impression of structured lunacy often employed in a surrealist context in order to invoke some form of humour, and purporters of cricketist thinking, most of them upper class twits, often employ the Monty Python team to illustrate the relevance of cricketist theory in contemporary society.

Losing subscribers on an internet game due to publishing nonsense to help your country win a competition is strictly cricket.
According to historian Steven Shapin one of the marks of an 18th century gentleman was ‘disinterestedness’, and this has been applied to cricketist theory; as gentlemanliness is a facet of how cricket an individual can be, by extension so too is disinterestedness, and as such a nonchalant approach to any part of life is enough to encourage at least two wickets worth of cricket in an individual.

For more information on what is or isn't cricket, see the following reference texts:
Mr Woldy, Last Night Cricket Saved my Life (Rotherham: 2011)
Stephen Hawking, Applied Cricketist Theory in the 21st Century (Cambridge University Press: 2014)
Barry Chuckle, Cricket, and Republican Thought (Rotherham: 2000)
Randy Eweman, Shakespeare and the origins of Cricket ideology (Stratford upon Avon: 2012).

Part of the MoHA cricket series.


Yep

It's the last few days of the nomination period for the Royal Family Prize, a community award that seeks to find a 'citizen of the month' and reward them for their work in the eUK.

Nominate here!

Thanks for Reading.
Mr Woldy.

---

Young achivers:
To any player requesting a welcome ingame (via PM): 15 Q7 Guns + 20 Q5 Foods
To any player who posts on the forum threa😛 10 Q7 Guns + 20 Q5 Foods
To any player who is elected a Congressmen or PP: 10 Q7 Guns + 10 Q5 Foods
To apply for the ‘Woldy’s Young Achievers’ Scheme, message me or simply pop your name in this thread on our external forums:
http://tinyurl.com/WoldWelcomes


As part of the Royal Writers, every player under level 25 who releases an article with at least a paragraph of decent content, whether it be political, humorous, or informative, will receive 150 GBP. Any writer under level 30 who gets an article into the top 5, will receive 300 GBP. Message me for your prize.

---