So apparently while I was away from the internet Ricky Ponting announced that he is retiring. I thought he was great.
As a fielder and captain his plump cheeks and underdog expression were adorable, especially as he was often feeling hard done by, having grown up in an era when Australia had better bowlers than everyone else by far but been captain at a time when they didn't.
As a batsman he wasn't exactly elegant but he had this way of getting on with everything correctishly, unfussily and emotionlessly. Together these features turned him into a kind of psychological mirror. Whenever he was batting all the attention and pressure somehow seemed to divert away from him and towards the bowler. The fact that he had clear weaknesses (by general consensus his technique only became viable when his incredible hand-eye coordination kicked in after about half an hour of batting, and even then often got him into trouble against properly excellent bowling) emphasised the effect. If the other team wasn't getting him out, it always seemed to be because they weren't quite special enough when it mattered.
To illustrate here is a clip of Shoaib Acktar battling with his Ponting-reflection:
You might be bothered by that possibility shortly before you start learning how to teach a maths class in 1966:
I'm nearly finished reading a book - `Patterns of Plausible Inference' - by the teacher, George Polya. It makes several tricky topics easy to understand, contains lots of fascinating and quirky examples and is beautifully written. There are also interesting lines of influence and comparison with the philosophers Jaynes and Carnap.
Biographical details: Polya was a pacifist, enjoyed playing football and didn't like maths at school.
