Love is a Rollercoaster: The Warne-Hurley Gag Reflex

Think of two celebrities at random, one male, one female - preferably of different nationalities. Say, Gwen Stefani and Tom from The Apprentice. Now imagine them dating. Do the same with 2 work colleagues: Facilities Manager, Karl and Sandra from Accounts. Automatically intone in a Sex in the City voice, ‘Eeeoouuuuwww’. Finally, picture two completely different species of wild animal and imagine a secret savannah liaison: let’s choose a giraffe and a gibbon. Rather than generating some kind of disgust or loathing, the images simply fail to penetrate the mind, instead bouncing harmlessly off the cranium. The same effect is achieved when talking about the Shane Warne and Elizabeth Hurley relationship, or even when being Tweeted by the couple in person.

For Shane and Liz are serial Twits: they even Tweet about cereal. Followers are privy to type-script conversations between the two over a virtual breakfast table: ‘Fruit and cereal?’ Shane asks, from the other side of the world. ‘Just fruit’, Liz replies, effortlessly managing what no professional cricket coach could, in getting Warne to circumvent a bacon rasher. Belatedly, he talks of ‘target weights’, going from paunch to gaunt after his career has ended, sort of like a reverse-Ricky Hatton. Gone is the sightscreen-sized face of MacDonalds chomping on a 7-foot long chicken burger. In its place is a lean, youthful and suspiciously cling-filmed appearance. 

A Hurley-enforced diet explains why Shane is now constantly referring to food whilst in the Sky commentary box. At times he seems to be reeling off a fantasy grocery list in his Aussie twang: ‘Gaarlic naan’, ‘keeebabs’ and mysterious Mexican food called ‘nah-chose’ and ‘far-heed-ahs’, provoked merely by the sight of spectators wearing sombreros. Let us pray that Shane doesn’t join the Test Match Special team of pundits receiving their regular mailshot of homemade Black Forest Gateaux from Radio Four home economics.

Warne has put his ‘Fountain of Youth’ appearance down to Estee Lauder moisturiser and healthy vegetable-substitutes. However, if this was the case the Lauder family would be the equivalent of the Rockefellers and the increased export of yams would see Nigeria’s GDP competing with China’s. His eyebrows have been plucked lending him a quizzical look; the same arch-browed disapproval deployed by David Lloyd. Warne resembles an age-fatigued 40 year-old Beverly Hills 90210 actor being heavily made-up to play a character supposed to be half his age. But, ultimately, the audience aren't fooled: they know the Warne of the future will look exactly like a crow-footless Paul Hogan.

The gushing nature of Warne’s flirty tweets is highly alarming, given his track record of ‘textual harassment’. However, he’s toned it down to the extent that he sounds like a hormonal teenager frustratedly trying to write a power ballad in the family garage, resorting to Keating imagery and words like ‘angel’ and ‘sugar’. All this is a far cry from traditional Warne tabloid sample texts, such as: ‘I want to see you riding me’. Such whispered statements are altogether more sinister, like Aussie sledges designed purely to produce mental disintegration in the recipient.

One cannot fail to read each new Warne tweet extra-tentatively, in the manner of a distrustful Englishman evaluating a brash and vicious leg-break. The context of Warne’s womanising past looms large as does his mystery-ball penchant for Home Counties working girls (in the purely literal sense of the phrase; as in, secretary or trainee nurse). Warne’s Anglo-Australian attraction has been reciprocated by fans who have longed for an English-born spinner of such stature. This wish may yet come true, with the unnerving possibility that scores of blonde, swaggering toddlers are already showing cricketing promise in the gardens of Hampshire.

So, once again, Shane turns his wily hand to Keating Tweeting:

‘The journey of life is about riding the ups/downs.’

Liz is visionary in her response:

‘Love is like a rollercoaster ride - sometimes it's exhilarating but sometimes u feel sick and want to get off.'