Brexit's all Greek to me

Like many others (or should that be like everyone in the UK?), the first time I heard the word 'brexit' was sometime before the referendum in June 2016.

At the time, I remember having many conversations bemoaning the fact that Cameron and his colleagues had failed to come up with anything like as punchy a name as brexit for referring to enthusiasm for remaining in the EU.

Nor had their chums in PR and advertising.

Yet 'brexit' has now been in the Oxford English Dictionary since December, 2016 - 6months after the referendum.

On looking into where, when and from whom it came there's an irony about it's use by everyone from David Cameron, Teresa May ("Brexit means brexit"), through those who campaigned vigorously for it like Johnson, Farage, Gove, Duncan Smith, Grayling, etc. etc. etc.

The irony is that the word was not coined by any of them but by someone in favour of remaining in the European Union:

The man who coined ‘Brexit’ first appeared on EURACTIV blog

By Matthew Tempest | EURACTIV.com Jan 10, 2017

The word ‘Brexit’ was coined by EURACTIV, according to the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, way back in 2012, in a blog post by Peter Wilding.

The decision came in an update to the third edition of the dictionary, put together by some 50-60 lexicographers, and was put online last month. It gives the definition of the word as: “the (proposed) withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, and the political process associated with it”.

He wrote about "Brexit" in May 2012, eight months before the then Prime Minister David Cameron had announced he would be holding a referendum.

"Unless a clear view is pushed that Britain must lead in Europe at the very least to achieve the completion of the single market then the portmanteau for Greek euro exit (Grexit) might be followed by another sad word, Brexit," he predicted.

Why doesn't India produce more fast bowlers?

As James Anderson  (left) said after he and Stuart Broad (right) had skittled India out twice in quick succession in the second Test match at Lords: "We would have bowled out any team under these conditions."

He didn't say that even pace bowlers as old as Broad and me were able to dismiss the best team in the world in next to no time."

One of the things that intrigues me about India's leading position in world cricket is that they've succeeded with some brilliant batsmen and brilliant slow spin bowlers - but with fewer fast bowlers than other national teams,  such as. Australia, the West Indies, England and Pakistan.

During one test match against Pakistan years ago (when England were being trounced by their pace attack), I was having breakfast with two Indian students at the Henley Management College.

I asked them why Pakistan always seemed to have had some seriously good fast bowlers (one of whom has just become President of the country) whereas it was more difficult to come up with a list of famous names of fast bowlers from India.

Both of them were agreed that the reason lay in the difference in the main religions of the two countries: "As Hindus, we're far too laid back to exert all the energy needed to bowl faster than medium pace; but Moslems are more aggressive than us so they're not afraid of taking a long run and bowling as fast as they possibly can."

Blogging again

It's 10 years since I started blogging - at the suggestion of journalist Michael Crick, then of BBC's Newsnight, now at Channel 4 News.

It became such a regular obsession that a selection of my blogs was published in my most recent book, Seen and Heard, after which the rate of posting now blogs dwindled for a variety of reasons. Recently, however, I've been updating (i.e. simplifying) the Atkinson Communications website, from which there is now a link to my blog that will make it easier for visitors to find whatever it is that I'm blogging about.

The main problem at the moment is that, silly season though it may be, political news there's so much depressing political news that there's too much to write about!