If you read Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack or live in Wagga Wagga you will remember James (“Jim”) Higgs, OAM. He is a leg spinner who played for Australia in twenty-two Test matches. The late, great and lamented Murray Hedgcock would have known him.
Now, if you can, forget about him and pay attention. Do you remember the nudge unit? I think it’s at work now. All adults in the UK are being “invited” to have a Covid vaccination but many youngsters may not relish a visit to a surgery or an injection. Question: how to sweeten the pill, so to speak? Answer: set up pop-up vaccination centres in football stadia – somewhere unthreatening and a trusted place, more so than a church for the youth of today.
Anecdotal evidence supports my theory. A friend reported in the June edition of Wooster Sauce that he’d been to Westminster Abbey for his vaccination. Algorithms rule our lives and Algy Rithim knew he’d go to the abbey to revisit the stone commemorating PG Wodehouse. Robert, another Robert, was sent to a tennis centre in Barnes for his jab. Jim Higgs’ brother was sent to Lord’s. I rest my case.
Needle time, an agreed maximum allowance of time for broadcasting recorded music, can lead to high time.
In the US, sports facilities tend to have large parking lots. My son got a number of COVID tests at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles. A friend in the Washington, DC, area ended up driving to an amusement park to get his vaccination. In neither case were the authorities aiming to use favorable associations. They just needed someplace that could accommodate fair-sized queues of cars.