The flower of Aussie manhood

A cricket tragic, I am lending half an ear to the cricket commentary on my wireless, thrilling to the feats of the flannelled gladiators.

And yet methinks it may be my flower-arranging, poetry-loving side that is appalled by the sometimes ugly blokeyness of cricket's star blokes. Men, the sex to which I have an uneasy affiliation, are at their most ugly when they are being tribal and belligerent.

And, alas there is some tribal belligerence about the renewed short-pitch bowling debate. Even those of you who are not cricket-mad (and in any case cricket is all about Life, really, and every Ashes match is a play by Shakespeare) may know that there is renewed debate about the "bouncer".

It is the ball fast bowlers produce that is meant to hurtle at a batsman's body and head (this kind of bowling is sometimes called by its blokey fans "chin music") so as to have him hold his bat in trembling hands. Australian fast bowlers (the most manly in the world) love to bombard batsmen with bouncers.

But in recent days former England captain Mike Atherton has come out to urge umpires to stop Australian speedsters aiming this bodyline stuff at England's tailend batsmen not accomplished enough to duck and weave out of harm's way. Atherton's views have sparked all sorts of deep-voiced, testosterone-steeped comments from past and future Australian greats. They have been booming that this belligerence helps make cricket the manly game that it is and that it has made men of them. They boom that instead of complaining about it England's tailend pansies should be more ballsy and learn (as Australia's tailend warriors have) how to cope, like real men.

But a flying cricket ball is a dangerous thing. At its worst it can kill, as the tragic example of dear Phillip Hughes reminds us.

And anyone who has played some cricket and who has been struck, hard, by a cricket ball will testify to what an unforgettable and character-building experience it can be.

Batting for my school in my pubescence I was once hit in what used to be called, for decency's sake, the "organs of increase". At the time (begging to be euthanased) I felt sure those organs would never be able, now, to be able to do any increasing of my species. But by some miracle I have gone on to do my patriotic bit to help populate our wide brown land.

But the flower-arranger in me is dismayed by this blokey "bouncer" debate, by this glorification of brutishness. It brings to cricket, which is in essence an elegant and civilising test of skill some of the sports nastiness of Bare Knuckle Mixed Martial Arts Cage Fighting. Bravery and brutishness should count for nothing in cricket (just as it counts for nothing in lawn tennis, and in badminton, the most poetic racquet sport of all). Timid, flower-arranging folk with fine cricket skills should be able to play first-class cricket without fear. The most exhilarating moments in cricket are not when a ball ricochets off a batsman's helmeted skull (at which point the bowling side becomes hypocritically beside itself with temporary concern) but when a ball rattles and skittles a batsman's stumps.

When I come to power intimidatory bowling will be banned, and poetry lovers and flower-arrangers (who often make fine spin bowlers and tacticians) will flock back to the game, enriching it.

Perhaps it is the sickeningly masculine Trump presidency that has some of us chaps, auxiliary members of our sex, agonising over the nature of true manliness.

So much of Trump's awfulness feels like exclusively male awfulness. Just as he is (for thinking Americans) an embarrassment to America he is (for thinking men) an embarrassment to his sex.

He has taken the male vices of tribalism ("America first!") and belligerence to new levels. When he brags (as he does again and again) about the USA's military might he carries on as if he is imaging the USA's weapons are part of his own body's mighty musculature (his aircraft carrier biceps, his cruise missile fists) built up over decades of manly body-building that have made him Mr Universe.

"I'm building up the military like no one has ever seen," the cowardly draft dodger (privilege and fake infirmities kept him well away from the Vietnam War) has swaggered.

"Each day, new equipment is delivered; new and beautiful equipment, the best anywhere in the world, by far. If we use it on North Korea, it will be a very sad day for North Korea. We dominate the sky. We dominate the sea. We dominate the land and space. I'm building up the military like no one has ever seen."

How very manly that all sounds, especially the notion of death-dealing weapons being so "beautiful". Meanwhile pansy, unmanly men delude themselves by thinking there is truer beauty in a vase of dewy dahlias. With no interest in dominating the sky, the sea, the land and space it is enough for them that one of their vases of flowers may dominate just the corner of a room. Blessed are the flower arrangers.