Creator
Matthew Engel
Daddy’s dead but his car is fine
Over huge swaths of the Unite States, country is about all you can find on the car radio – all those songs about tormented love, mommy going away or daddy dying, calculated to…
America – socialism’s sporting stronghold
The worst team in American football are the Cincinnati Bengals. Last season they won two games and lost 14. If they were an English football team, we know what would happen. They…
The US is so parochial
There are two greetings used by members of Her Majesty’s sporting press when they greet each other on a foreign field at the start of an event.
Ten-pin fans bowled over
You will be delighted to know that the day has finally arrived to bring you up to date with news from the world of ten-pin bowling, which must hit the top 10 list of the most…
Bringing aid and the Bible
It could only happen with a United States invasion. Poised behind the troops, waiting for a signal that Iraq is safe enough for them to operate in, are the evangelical Christians…
The man who will rule Iraq
It is probably most accurate to call him Iraq’s president-elect. The moment President Saddam Hussein falls, Jay Garner will take over, with the kind of sweeping power over the…
Bushwhacked
It is more than 30 years ago now, though it seems like yesterday. A Republican president, much derided by liberals, was in the White House and his opponents were being lashed by…
An incompetent bunch of rankers
They say no good deed goes unpunished and, boy, sometimes one has to keep learning this lesson the hard way. To explain: eight years ago, as editor of Wisden, I first proposed…
The US: Canada’s national obsession
Now where on the axis of evil can we be? The country’s long-reigning leader thinks the president of the United States is contemptible, a sentiment heartily reciprocated. The…
Meet the new Zionists
At first sight, the scene is familiar: one that happens in Washington DC and other American cities all the time. On the platform, an Israeli student is telling thousands of…
Cowboys play a weighting game
With great regret it is necessary to report the departure from the upper reaches of American football of the Western world’s most extraordinary-looking professional sportsman,…
US troops sent to Cote d’Ivoire to rescue trapped children
About 200 United States special forces troops were sent into Cote d’Ivoire this week to try and rescue American children who have been trapped in a school in the city of Bouake…
Bush stonewalls on Iraq
President George W Bush this week described speculation about an impending attack on Iraq as ”a frenzy”, stressing he was a ”patient man” and would consult with United States…
Unwanted tie chills baseball
The commissioner of baseball looked like thunder: ”This will never happen again,” he said. ”One more misstep for a battered sport,” intoned The New York Times.
Bored in the USA
Eight years after Fifa’s World Cup was held in the United States, in an attempt to integrate the greatest game and the greatest market, not much has changed.