The right man for the job?

I never had childhood heroes. No one that really stands out. Then last year Freddie stepped up, with the black marker pen on his scalp, his arms outstretched, that 'tongue out' nod. That 34 over spell split over two days, at the Oval, in which he took 5 for 78. The handshake with Brett Lee. That over to take both Langer and Ponting down and leave Oz at 48 for 2. The 102 at Trent Bridge. The 73 at Edgbaston. The man was a god. Bacchus to be precise. While Vaughan set the odd fields and psyched the ozzies out, Flintoff just magnetised the team and the nation, the passion came flooding from him and went with him.

So why make him captain this time round? It is not possible for a man to be a more galvanising influence than Flintoff already is. He can't gee the players up more, make them more up for it than he does, so why make him think about it. His form can only be adversely affected with the captaincy around his neck.

Give it to Strauss, he's proved he can play the big innings whilst captaining the side. He may not be the tactical genius Vaughan quite patently is, but he has captain written all over him.

I can't help thinking they've made the wrong decision.

12th September 2001

As we walked towards the tube station we felt nothing. The elation that we'd imagined, was missing. The unadulterated joy of the moment was cloudy. We should have been skipping along. What we were actually doing, was urgently scanning the skies for low flying planes. Stupid really, because the whole of London was a flight exclusion zone, but these were newly paranoid times.

Everywhere we looked we were met with the stoney looks of a people in shock. Commuters that were even more silent than normal. Confused punters who had seemingly woken up to a different world. Just like we had that morning.

Our new world, should have been bright and exciting and new. It was something we desperatly wanted to share with anyone who'd listen, but instead the world was grey. The newspapers' shouted the new world order from both front and back pages. The indicator stick, that had been so positive earlier that morning suddenly seemed overwhelmingly negative.

What had we done? No new child should be born to this? No one asks to be born certainly not into a world that can be destroyed in an inkling. Our whole world seemed to be skewing on it's axis. The certainty with which we'd approached life was gone. Our need and want to be parents was being destroyed. Unknowingly we'd set in motion a process that could only end in one conclusion. Or, so we thought.

The negativity that surrounded that time, may or may not have been a contributory factor to the actual conclusion, we will never know. What I do know is had things carried on the way we believed they would, I wouldn't have the two boys I do now and for that I am truly grateful.

Spot the Difference

It's uncanny isn't it?

Not just a pretty face

Well done Maria Sharapova for your US Open win. Finally the critics and advertisers might realise you're not just Anna Kournikova in disguiuse.

Thursday night is comedy night

When I was a teenager (ok and early 20s), Thursday night was the night to sit down in front of the telly and watch the cream of BBC comedy. Blackadder, The Young Ones, The Day Today, Alan Partridge, Alas Smith and Jones, A bit of Fry and Laurie, Harry Enfield and Chums and on and on, all debuted on a Thursday night. On the whole you knew - even if you had no idea about the listings - that if you turned on BBC1 or 2 at 9pm, on a Thursday evening you'd get quality comedy.

Then in the late 90s it seemed to disappear and was replaced with hour long dramas. Sporadically the comedy seemed to return, but normally you'd get something average and something bloody awful.

But that's all over for now. This Thursday sees the launch of what I'm hoping will be two absolute corkers, on BBC2.


At 9pm there's the second series of Extras . This as you'll probably know is Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais's follow-up to the huge international award-winning behemouth that was 'The Office'.

In many ways I liked 'Extras' more than 'The Office'. Don't get me wrong I thought 'The Office' was genius, but the duo managed to pull off something that was dramatically different with 'Extras', Something that is extraordinary given the former's success.

Quieter in both tone and somehow, it's critique. They managed - with Extras - the incredible feat of it not being blown out of the water, by acclaim before it was even launched. In retrospect they played it smartly and left it on BBC2 rather than BBC1 and quite rightly, it's a classic BBC2 comedy.

As with 'The Office' the characterisation is amazingly rounded and deep. By the end of the first episode you felt you knew Andy Millman and Maggie Jacobs, but still had tons to come. They also pulled off the rare feat of introducing huge, A-List guest stars without them dominating the entire episode in which they partook, partly as they persuaded those stars to drop the act and reveal a little of the absurd, partly as the focus of the plot remained with the central characters.

I'm hoping this second series will be as great as the first. The writing team has a track record of not getting carried away and staying true to the original idea. I caught Gervais on Jonathon Ross on Friday in which he managed to shut Ross up for 5 minutes while he explained the rationale for the series. I've not been a huge fan of the off-screen Gervais, but the interview he did was extremely enouraging. Here's hoping.

However, if 'Extras' is a let down, hot on it's heals is the (well my) long-awaited television adaptation of the radio show 'That Mitchell and Webb sound'. Rather aptly entitled 'That Mitchell and Webb Look' it is the brainchild of prolific writing team David Mitchell and Robert Webb.

Mitchell and Webb are no strangers to TV. They are regular panellists on all the big headline comedy panel shows over all channels, but more importantly have already turned in 3 series of the outstanding 'Peep Show' on Channel 4. Rather cruelly it was pipped to last years Best Comedy series Bafta by the woeful third series of Little Britain. However, some consellation came in the form of Ricky Gervais's comment that it was 'the funniest programme currently on TV'.

In many ways the series could appear to be a way of cashing in. 'That Mitchell and Webb Look' is a straight-forward old-fashioned sketch show. It doesn't have the surreal quirkiness of say 'Big Train' or the utter crappiness of recent Little Miss Jocelyn. Nope it's straightforwrd sketch comedy out of the 'Not the Nine'o'clock News' or 'Alas Smith and Jones' camp. However, the two writers are extremely quick-witted off-the-wall characters and you get the distinct impression, that they could reel off a six part series in a week, such is their ability to find laughs from anywhere. I however, couldn't care less these boys are absolutely hilarious. In my house, they have the rare honour of being the only people on radio to force me to stop driving my car, because I was crying laughing at one of their sketches. The Radio 4 to BBC2 comedy show transition has a long and susccessful tradition, I'm sure this will be no exception.

Biggest laugh of the weekend

Courtesy of Private Eye Lookalikes

What's all this about Chelsea Clinton?

If Popbitch is to be believed she's having threesomes with her 2 bodyguards.

They're a pretty reliable source and normally if it's libellous they'll couch it in non-libellous terms, but no, here's the text from the weekly Popbitch email in full.

''US newspapers claim to have a story that Chelsea Clinton has been getting, er, serviced by her two Secret Service minders. At the same time. The man and woman appointed to protect the ex-First Daughter are said to be in trouble for taking that to mean they should get this up close and personal with their charge. So far the threesome are keeping quiet but with US service personnel getting blown up on a daily basis, shouldn't we just be happy that some of them are just getting blown?''

Big grown-up boy

Eben started pre-school on Monday. He's going for a couple of mornings a week to begin with and that'll probably increase after a term or so.

He's changed amazingly over the past few weeks, many of his previous nervous tendencies have become much less so. He was previously terrified by dogs, but is now happy to stroke them. He warms up to strangers far more quickly than he used to and his comprehension has come on in leaps and bounds, he's a total sponge at the moment.

As a result our worries that he'd find being left alone hugely traumatic appear to have been unfounded.

Nic stayed with him for around 40 minutes, day 1 and around 20 minutes, day 2. Although he appeared a little reticent about her leaving, he did happily go off with one of the members of staff and come Tuesday morning when I was getting him dressed he couldn't have been more excited. It's very reassuring, I'm glad we took the decision for Nic to give up work 18 months ago, it's turned, what was a very nervous little boy in to one with far more confidence.

Crouch

What exactly does Peter Crouch have to do to win true critical acclaim. OK so he scored three against Jamaica and two against Andorra (for which he got a bit of an undeserved warning from Rafa) to boost his 11 goal England tally, but all the great strikers cash in when they can. He looked great against Portugal up on his own when Rooney got sent off, and of course he was better suited to the role than Rooney, but again he did what was asked of him when it was needed.

He's come on and performed in virtually every England game he's ever played in, but as soon as Rooney's fit he'll probably get dropped. Why? He scores goals whatever the pressure, which is more than can be said of, Defoe (watch it sail over the crossbar from 10 yards) and in recent years Owen.

By all accounts he has the propensity to be absolutely dire. Ask Liverpool fans who watched the recent Hammers match, but lo and behold he popped up to score the winner.

He's slow, but he makes up for it with a disarmingly good feel for the ball and first touch considering his size.

I somehow think he'll remain a figure of fun. He'll never truly be taken seriously and maybe that dance was a very bad mistake. Had he not performed the robot, maybe people would have taken a better look. Who knows. Somehow I think he'll end up discarded. It's a shame.

Suri with a fringe on top

It's gotta be a wig right?