Has there been a bigger buzz about a five-day Test match than the one starting at The Oval in just under an hour? It's a bit like Grand Final Fever. Some of the British media are comparing this to Wembley 1966. Maybe I could modestly offer a mention of Upton Park 2003...
The cricket will have my undivided attention from about half an hour after the start of play. Two points for now:
Just a reminder to all those people who stumble upon my website while googling for "SBS Ashes Website" - the SBS Ashes Website is at www20.sbs.com.au/theashes (yes, www20), and about an hour before the start of each day's play, one of their studio commentators (either Dean Jones, Greg Matthews, or anchorperson Simon Hill) will be present in the live forum, and this is the place to leave questions for them.
Some hastened php scripting and MySQL table amendments, and the news and blog feeds are starting to roll again.
I've removed the calendar - it wasn't being used and was dumping a lot of junk into a temp/cache directory. I'd like to collaborate with someone on an ical-based fixtures calendar - anyone interested?
The other pending change to the site is that I will retire the tipping competition following the conclusion of the Zimbabwe-India Test series. It's had a low takeup and the software is very clumsy for both users and administrator.
This website is back (I think) after 36 hours off the air. Apparently the server on which this site is hosted had some sort of massive failure, and has now been replaced and the data restored. Well, Sunday's backup restored anyway. Any updates to the site in the last few hours before the crash (about midday Monday Sydney time) are lost, but I don't recall any off hand in any case.
Today, the first Sunday in September, is Father's Day in Australia and New Zealand. On Friday it was announced that Steve Waugh is Australia's Father of the Year for 2005. My congratulations to him.
England women's all-rounder Katherine Brunt, as quoted by Sam Wheeler in Saturday's Yorkshire Post:
"I lost 22 stone in six months," she said. "I found I could bowl a lot quicker and my action was quicker."
Well, yes, I'm sure you would...
Essex v Australia, Chelmsford, 3-4 September 2005
Stumps Day One
Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch.
- George W Bush, Mobile (Alabama), 2.9.05 (source)
Thanks to everyone who has given feedback about The Net Sessions, which I think I can now safely say is the first podcast series devoted exclusively to cricket. I especially thank those people who have given suggestions about tweaking the sound quality.
Every Test match in the 2005 Ashes has thrown up a new populist question in the tabloids. "Was this the greatest Test ever?" "Is cricket the new football?" "Is cricket the new sex?" "Is Flintoff the new Beckham?" "Is Pietersen the new Posh?" and so on.
Being the 46 year-old nerd that I am, I prefer to go for the more boring issues. In this edition of "If 42 Is The Answer Then It Must Be A Bloody Stupid Question", I ask: "Why are the Aussies getting so damn little match practice on this tour?"
