Things I Like ... Cricket

Sadly I've spent this afternoon at a funeral, mourning the loss of a dear friend, and father of one of my oldest and best friends. He wouldn't have been happy about the length of my hair at present or that I'm not in a safe and steady job, but I'm sure he'd be pleased that I polished my boots at least. And more than happy that, since I heard of his illness, I've had his old cricket mantra circling my brain - "Catches Wins Matches" ... he used to say it over and over when we were training as young lads, and one particular night at an end of season presentation ad infinitum. Top bloke, honest as they come and he taught me how to play "the greatest game ever invented". Goodnight squire !



And it is "the greatest game ever invented", just ask Stephen Fry ! Cricket has the most variables, yet a steadfast set of mathematical and logistical rules, it is glorious, and anyone can play, no matter what physique you might bestow. Runs, catches, maidens, wickets, overs, weather, silly mid-off, the Duckworth Lewis Method ... there's a whole 'nother beautiful language that goes along with the game and it's rules that once you give yourself over to it, you'll never forget it.

Now, I don't play all that often these days, and when I do it's usually just knocking around the nets or a quick sunny afternoon session when the numbers are up. But it's a splendid thing ... oh and did I mention Cricket Teas ... a beautiful idea !!



It might surprise some that I have more trophies as a kid for my cricketing, bit of a Phil Neville I was, I played for a club and school that were both champions of Derbyshire, and had varying levels of success in East Midlands and Midlands competitions, narrowly missing out of representing my school at Lords was a bit of a kick in the teeth, but you grow up and get over it. And I was asked to captain the local Borough of Erewash as a schoolboy after briefly captaining the school team whilst my mate Chris was busy playing for Derbyshire CCC.

And one of the things I always used to do, was attempt to build a scale model of Old Trafford Cricket Ground from my LEGO ... I've no idea why that particular ground, I've no connection with Lancashire or Manchester, and Trent Bridge is the nearest and nicest ground to where I grew up, who knows, eh? Never Lose Your Sense of Wonder.



To link all this in with a bit of music, and a crazy cricket term that I've already mentioned, The Duckworth Lewis Method is one of my favourite albums of all time !! Now, I won't try and explain what the Duckworth Lewis Method is regarding cricket, that might take a few blogs to the uninitiated, but it was and is a concept album based around this great game produced by Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy and Thomas Walsh of Pugwash. An excellent listen if you're ever inclined or have the chance ... The Age of Revolution is one of my favourite songs of the last 20 years, and that's saying something. The tunes are solid, even if you don't get all the references ...

Anyways, thanks for the memories Pete, MHx

Some more Things I Like ...
Fire
Gardening
Film
Yorkshire Tea
LEGO
Tippy The Cat
Khan Academy
Apple Cider Vinegar
McVitie'sBiscuits

I'm starting to think "my mate Chris" deserves his own blog feature ...

---===DOWNLOAD LINKS===---
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep/id814589358
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aint-Easy-My-Life-EP/dp/B00I8ZDJZC/
https://play.spotify.com/album/733AAcf7c2KcZ75SUFlpi3
http://matthenshaw.bandcamp.com/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
http://www.emusic.com/album/matt-henshaw/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep/14753983/
http://www.7digital.com/artist/matt-henshaw/release/it-aint-easy-my-life
http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/matt-henshaw/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
http://www.napster.co.uk/artist/matt-henshaw/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep

Things I Like ... McVitie's Biscuits

So, I'm home for one more day, and it's raining. So I'm sat inside with a cup of Yorkshire Tea and a selection of McVitie's biscuits, really getting back to my youth. Like everything I write about on this 'ere Things I Like ... feature on my blog, McVities ties in with the formative years of my life, hold keys to the nature of the universe and I love the company, their products and their history.

As with the LEGO and Yorkshire Tea, there's a tiny part of me that believes I shouldn't be all for advertising companies but, what can I say? They're engrained in my lifestyle, my culture, my history and my narrative, and I don't think they do any harm on the grand scale. So, let's have a look shall we, McVities is a British company, if that means anything to you, still based in Britain, and whilst they're now a subsidiary of United Biscuits the company, their products haven't changed. I've always admired the fact that the Milk Chocolate Digestives come in a brown packet ... brown?? And they still sell, that's a quality product right there !

The staple products have been a staple part of my life and diet since I was a little 'un - Mini Cheddars, Rich Tea, Milk Chocolate Digestives, Jaffa Cakes, Hob Nobs and Penguins - the only real newcomer to suitably impress is the Milk Chocolate Caramel biscuit, although I think that can't be a healthy biscuit, I just admire it's capacity to sustain it's rigid internal and external structure after dipping in your tea for upwards of 20 minutes, me and my best mate Chris have tested it, maybe not scientifically but we eat a lot of biscuits and drink a lot of tea !

Also, every one of their products is suitable for vegetarians so they're a great compliment to all the fruit and veg I get through, and it's nice to know that you don't have to search the packet for a little V logo to know, you just instinctively know.



And whilst I don't own a TV, I happened across the latest adverts, and they are the cutest things I've ever seen, you had me at cats ...

And I guess I'll leave you on a McVities biscuit related bit of music trivia, Noel and Liam Gallagher's mum Peggy used to work in the McVities factory in Manchester, and bring home all the broken biscuits and reject to the boys, which Noel would then take into school. It did make him very popular, but also earned him the nickname "Gallagher The Biscuit" ...

Peace, Love & Tea, MHx

PS. Don't blame it on the biscuits ...



Some more Things I Like ...
Fire
Gardening
Film
Yorkshire Tea
LEGO
Tippy The Cat
Khan Academy
Apple Cider Vinegar

---===DOWNLOAD LINKS===---
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep/id814589358
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aint-Easy-My-Life-EP/dp/B00I8ZDJZC/
https://play.spotify.com/album/733AAcf7c2KcZ75SUFlpi3
http://matthenshaw.bandcamp.com/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
http://www.emusic.com/album/matt-henshaw/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep/14753983/
http://www.7digital.com/artist/matt-henshaw/release/it-aint-easy-my-life
http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/matt-henshaw/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
http://www.napster.co.uk/artist/matt-henshaw/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep

Things I Like ...

And simply, sometimes, I like to share with you Things I Like ... and I hope some of you like them too ... here are the things that have made the cut so far ... put the kettle on and have a read through a little Matt Henshaw Life Like Love History ! Peace, Love & Tea, MHx

Things I Like ...

Fire

Gardening

Film

Yorkshire Tea

LEGO

Tippy The Cat

See you all soon ! x

---===DOWNLOAD LINKS===---
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep/id814589358
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aint-Easy-My-Life-EP/dp/B00I8ZDJZC/
https://play.spotify.com/album/733AAcf7c2KcZ75SUFlpi3
http://matthenshaw.bandcamp.com/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
http://www.emusic.com/album/matt-henshaw/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep/14753983/
http://www.7digital.com/artist/matt-henshaw/release/it-aint-easy-my-life
http://www.rhapsody.com/artist/matt-henshaw/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep
http://www.napster.co.uk/artist/matt-henshaw/album/it-aint-easy-my-life-ep

Matt Henshaw Recommends ... Stef Baker

Head down to the Soundhouse to see Grace & The Magic Roots and catch up with the great Rhett Barrow on a quiet Tuesday night and you just might happen to see someone who stops you in your tracks and blows you away. That's exactly what happened last night with the wonderful, glorious and extremely talented Stef Baker ... I enjoyed her short set so much that I've added her to my show at The Cookie on Friday night.

Just four songs was all it took, and to be fair she had me hooked after two original gems, and then produced a superbly haunting cover of Wonderwall that reminded you that, even though you've heard it a million time ad infinitum, and it may have driven you up the wall at varying points in your life, it is a great, great song. Kind of like when Ryan Adams slowed it down and Noel Gallagher said that's how he always intended it to be. Although The Chemical Brothers claim he took it to them before they recorded Setting Sun and N. Gallagher wanted to make a Balearic dance tune with it !

So, yeah, Stef Baker will be joining myself, Becky Edwards, Kate Rendell and Emily Carr at The Cookie in Leicester on Friday night, and there's a few other surprise guests planned too, and with Charlotte Carpenter hosting her Tea Party downstairs we're sure to have a whole building full of Love !

Other reasons to Love Stef ... even though you'll have hundreds after Friday night ... she obviously quite likes LEGO almost as much as I do as well !!

Things I Like ... Yorkshire Tea

I sit here contemplating my Tuesday and you know who I'm sat with. My best friend. My mug of strong Yorkshire Tea. Every day I manage to get through around 5 or 6 cups of the stuff at an absolute minimum. I could bore you with the health benefits of tea drinking, the restorative and recuperative nature of it's leave or the magical sense of ritual when boiling a pot, but I won't. Just 'ave yourself a proper brew and enjoy your day !



In this last week my world online, in cyberspace, social networking and plugging all my digital wares was wholly 100% vindicated and justified when - probably with a solitary click of a mouse by a staff member in an office somewhere - @YorkshireTea followed me on twitter! Made my day / week / year !

Growing up I even preferred supporting Yorkshire CCC, instead of the local options of Nottinghamshire or Derbyshire, perhaps in part due to being a Sheffield Wednesday fan, or small part being a fan of Michael Bevan and Gavin Hamilton, or the young Ryan Sidebottom's fabulous name, equally fabulous hair, but probably in the largest part due to their Yorkshire Tea logo stitched to the shirt sleeves ... I was a happy and contented little boy, playing with LEGO, drawing flags and watching cricket !



More recently people are becoming more and more aware of my pro-Tea stance, there's even a few bars in Leicester I can go to and get free cups on the house, just at first sight of my face and safe in the knowledge that I won't be ordering a Carlsberg or a Jack Daniels' and Coke. Tea drinking has its ups ... and come to think of it, I can't think of any downs. Keep on slurping people !!

At a wild rock'n'roll party in the not so distant past I regaled the gathered troubadours with tales of fruit, vegetables and tea at 3 in the morning ... producing a holy scripture ... my 'Tea Pyramid' ... it was photographed for posterity and handed down between the ranks. I shall share it with you now, I hope you can make sense of it ... and I hope that if you are a drinker or Earl Grey you are not offended (I'm just that bit to northern to enjoy its perfumed taste) ... and I hope that if you are a drinker of Tesco home brand tea you are offended and you buck your ideas up ... it's not big and it's not clever and you buying that stuff is probably destroying the planet in ways you couldn't possibly imagine ... Spread The Love !



Peace, Love & Tea,
Matt Henshaw x

Things I Like ... LEGO

Number 2 on the Things I Like blog is ... LEGO. My lifelong favourite toy, and favourite toy of the 20th Century. Well done world ! There are enough LEGO bricks in the world for us all to have some, if only we could use that kind of efficiency and production rate with food, maybe there's something to learn from the LEGO Company to solve distribution of provisions and world hunger. One can only dream, eh?

Anyway, I have a lot of trouble with spreading so much Love for LEGO. There are a few things, yeah, the production rate is one, and it's plastic. We don't need so much plastic in the world, even though there's a girl in Turkey who has figured out how to make plastic from banana peel, maybe we can use that to stop the world's reliance on oil, and, also, you can use banana peel to naturally whiten your teeth. How can I be an advocate for such a big plastic shifting company ?!?

OK, LEGO is educational, fun and has helped fuel creativity for over half a decade ! Being that it's plastic and with its patented interlocking brick system it means that LEGO bricks made 50 years ago are still perfectly functional. We can learn so much from the little nodule bricks; numbers, colours, shapes, sizes, it's all in there. I used to spend a lot of my time making LEGO flags of the world ... if you remember from my last blog, one of my first books was an atlas !



Another thing, LEGO Games, games are great, games bring people together, you can learn about each other, talk and share ideas when playing games. With LEGO games you get to build, play and learn. And you can make up your own rules, and sometimes, even, build your own board ! Get yourself involved in some LEGO games ...



But, I gotta say, another thing that bothers me slightly about the LEGO company is there recent trend of franchising movies and tv shows of late, although it might be down to my distaste for so much of popular culture, as when I see LEGO Batman, or the recent LEGO Simpsons set, I do get pangs of excitement ! And I did spend a whole summer playing LEGO Batman on the PS2, the only time I've played a computer game and completed it 100%, finding all the secret red bricks and unlocking all the characters, even Ra's Al Ghul, I don't know how I did it, but I did it, and there's a memory card somewhere to prove it !



Finally, I had a reminder recently that I do truly and deeply love these little plastic gizmos ! The LEGO Movie came out just this last week. I was underwhelmed by the build up to the movie and I was almost entirely put off by the trailers for the film, however, I watched it. And I'm so glad I did, I watched it, and then gave up another couple of hours and watched it again ! I was completely taken aback by the animation, the humour, the postmodernism, everything. The cast is fantastic, and it doesn't overwhelm the plot or the film, like a good Pixar movie doesn't. I could probably write you a few thousand words on how great the film is, and its goings on, but I don't want to waste anymore of your time or giveaway too much of the plot. Just go see it !!