Life is grand

The 2007 Cricket World Cup is coming up in March. Thankfully Ireland is such a cricket mad nation I, a cricket fan, won’t have any problem watching any of the games.

Oh wait, sorry, that’s India, not Ireland.

The Irish would rather pick up a cricket bat and beat you with it than sit through a cricket game. It is a shame really as the average Irish fella, and wan, is sport mad. They love their sport and are fiercely competitive even if just sitting at the pub counter swilling pints. I’d bet a hurling fan or an Irish rugby supporter would, were their preconceptions and love for the English set aside, be leaping off their stools in excitement during a Pro20 game.

Sadly I’d be beaten by that aforementioned cricket bat should I even suggest it.

Being a cricket fan though I am determined to get my cricket fix. Going down to the pub, even a sports pub, is not going to happen. They’ll probably rather show reruns of the Croke park massacre than show a second of cricket in an Irish pub. Local TV channels are not showing it. A mate has Sky Sports which is showing it but… he is Irish. Not going to happen.

It turns out I have exactly two options if I want to watch games from the CWC while living in Waterford, Ireland. 1: Fly to the West Indies and buy some scalped tickets. 2: Get Sky Sports.

The funny bit is option 2 would probably end up costing as much as option 1. Sky is expensive, to get what I want it would cost €64 a month. I can’t subscribe for just the two months the CWC is on either, oh no, Sky will be with me for a solid 12 months. That is €768.

Anyone know of an affordable way I can watch cricket in Ireland?

I just saw an interesting new feature from Sky, the satellite TV provider. You can program your set-top-box on your mobile phone. So if you are away from home and hear of an interesting show you can whip out the mobile phone, find the relevant show and set it to record. Presumably the Sky mobile server then communicates with your set-top-box at home.

A simple but useful idea. I wonder how much mobile phones will come to be remote controls for all manner of other fixed devices? I wouldn’t mind being able to SMS my car to turn on the heating 5 minutes before I get into it.