User:BartBassist


 * (and it never ceases to amuse him)

Interests include music, cricket, table tennis, history of various descriptions, maths, languages and linguistics, comedy, pedantry and BBC Radio 4.

The tragically doomed
My career as a sports spectator, perhaps spurred on by my own sporting incompetence, has consistently featured a peculiarly English proclivity for the support of the talented but tragically doomed. A keen (though latterly increasingly disillusioned) Tim Henman supporter until his retirement, I also supported that serial near-winner Jimmy White (if you want to know why, take a look at this). An ardent Worcestershire fan, I retain the firm belief that Graeme Hick was the finest batsman of his generation, and the most ill-used by England's selectors. The Worcestershire side of my youth also featured such England discards as Vikram Solanki, Gareth Batty, Kabir Ali and Steve Rhodes; the woefully unlucky Simon Jones has also passed through the ranks. The side remains wonderfully talented but frustratingly inconsistent, though their presence in the top division of both domestic teams for the 2009 season is most pleasing. Inevitably, I am also a fan of the similarly talented and frustratingly inconsistent England cricket team. Thus also rugby union and football, though I follow them less.

Music
An amateur musician, whose brief excursion into the realms of semi-professionalism exposed his limitations. Will listen to anything, from Bach and Beethoven, to Brahms and Bruckner, to Bernstein and Berlin, to Basie, to Brown. And bassists, of course.

Languages
I have attempted to study various languages at different stages, with varying degrees of success. I try not to be too pedantic with regard to linguistics. It's hard sometimes.