Fast Lady in Pearls - Zephirine

Racing driver and aviatrix Mary Bruce, looking sophisticated for the camera

Looking a bit more disheveled on arrival in Japan on her 1930
solo journey round the world.

How to fly a 1930s plane - note the speed required for take-off.

Read the full text of Zephirine's witty biography of the amazing Mary Bruce at Pseuds' Corner

Seperated at Birth?

Caveman Culture - file

Ahead of tonight’s crunch game at the Stade de France there’s surely only one name on the lips of those tense with anticipation, one image in theirs minds; Sebastian Chabal a.k.a. The Caveman (L’Homme des Cavernes), previously, and chillingly, known as The Anaesthetist.

France vs Ireland in group D of the Rugby World Cup will probably decide who gets past the group stages and who lingers there. For France, as the home nation, it is a must-win game as to be knocked out at this stage would be catasrophique.

Yet, “Cometh the hour, cometh the Caveman”, Sebastian Chabal has been doing a Lomu over the last few years and treading on anyone who gets in his way. Witness the literal destruction of the All Blacks in these clips from last June’s tour of New Zealand.


France is, apparently, in the grip of Caveman mania at the moment and his supporters enjoy nothing better than walking around in shaggy black wigs and long, wild, beards. He’s already been immortalized in the French version of Spitting Image (must they copy everything we do?) by ‘Les Guignols de l’info’ a Canal + institution (are there any French speakers willing to translate before I mangle it surreally?)




The Caveman persona is not just about his Neolithic countenance, primeval ferociousness in the tackle or nefarious doll marketing strategies, oh no. Like Eric Cantona, that other feral Frog, he plies his trade in the prehistoric wilds of England; at Sale. There, they like to sing “Chabad to the Bone” [sic] because he is and there is no better excuse for a bit of George Thorogood, is there?

The Revenge of the Underbull - Tony Ellis

My Favourite Sporting Photograph - MotM

Cricket is not a sport that lends itself to great photography, but it has produced just about my favourite sports photograph.

On one level, this is a photograph of the great West Indies pace quartet of the early eighties, but it's actually so much more than that.

In the background, one can discern the peaks of the Trinindadian mountains looming over Queen's Park, Port-of-Spain, a name redolent of the island's colonial past. The island's still troubled present is evident in the fences to restrain the crowd and the shabbiness of the stands (now gone in ICC World Cup redevelopment). The outfield is hardly the green baize of Lords with the fierce Caribbean sun having scorched the grass.

But none of that matters when you look at the four men. They stand in line, slightly impatient, but doing as they are told because they are a team with a job to do. But they are also individuals, each adopting a different stance and each finding a different position for their hands. Andy Roberts, Antiguan, stands at the front, the oldest, the subtlest and the acknowledged leader - a man who spoke little, but every word was cricketing gold. Next is Michael Holding, Jamaican, loquacious off the field, silent and devastating on it. Third in line is Colin Croft, Guyanese, constantly aggressive, sometimes ill-disciplined with a vicious delivery angling into the right-hander. Finally Joel Garner, Bajan, an extraordinarily skilled bowler who used his height and long fingers to great effect.

The West Indies pacemen defined bowling for a generation - the reasons are all there in the photograph. For more, read Zepherine's excellent piece at Pseuds' Corner.

Mouth of the Mersey

Photograph Getty Images courtesy of The Googly