All square after the Gabba

After a few days of getting up between 4am and 5am I'm beginning to think that I'm living in a different time zone. The reason, the Ashes. After three days England's back was up against the wall, we trailed by more than 200 and it seemed iyt would be an uphill task just to make the Aussies bat again.

Enter Strauss, Cook and Trott, all of whom went on to make centuries.

Cook in fact broke the highest total record at the Gabba, his 225 not out, overtakes Bradman's long standing record. Trott,quietly goes on accumulating runs. England got into a position where they couldn't lose, and then declared. The wicket was flat and offered little help to the spinners. Nevertheless England's comeback suggests the momentum is with us, as the squads head to Adelaide.

The key question is whether either of the two teams can manage to take twenty wickets to win a match. For England that means one thing, will the wicket take spin, and if so can Graeme Swann repeat the form that he has shown on English wickets to the tracks in Australia.

A few days rest before it all starts again on Friday..

Away from the cricket, Sunday offered the chance to watch the East Anglian derby, Norwich City against the old farm enemy, now renamed " Roy Keane's Ipswich". Not sure how I started to take an interest in Norwich's results , but they've become my football league team, and the chance to hear updates on our regional TV helps. On Sunday the Canaries secured the bragging rights with a 4-1 victory, with Grant Holt bagging a hat trick.

Snow stops trip

I'm not a fan of snow, it disrupts my life and within hours it's a slushy mess. On Friday night the friends who we were scheduled to visit in Somerset this weekend phoned to say their area was under several inches of it. The decision was quickly made to reschedule the trip in the new year. As a result I was able to go the AFC Wimbledon's FA Cup tie v Stevenage.

Yes it was on TV, and on a free to view channel as well, that meant even my old Mum could watch the game, however for me TV is no substitute for being there. A mix of weather, tiredness and wanting to save cash meant that I decided to travel to Kingsmeadow by public transport. No one makes these journeys easy. Our railway line was closed yet again foe engineering work, so I drove to the nearest underground where the car park was closed. The shortcut from north to south of the river was also shut, and they wonder why people use their cars.

The presence of Tv did not inflate the crowd but did mean that various notables were in attendance. Sadly the Dons didn't turn up in the first hour, and although the Stevenage opening goal owed more to poor decision making by Seb Brown than to the quality of the free kick, the visitors deserved their goal lead to half time.

The second half performance was much improved, but with tewn minutes remaining we conceded a second, and the dream of drawing one of the premiership giants in the 3rd Round was over for another year.

On te plus side the TV exposure that this cup run has generated is very welcome and of course the TV Match fees are quite substantial for a club the size of the Dons. It was a cold day and 12.50pm is an unusual kick off but we can have no complaints and Stevenage will go into tomorrow's draw with my good wishes, if for no other reason than they prevented us having to meet the Franchise.

Climate Change Sceptics

Yesterday Rupert Reed , Green councillor from Norwich and lecturer at UEA tweeted that there were more climate change deniers as a percentage of the population in the UK than in any other country including the USA. Now apart from the fact that this is stunningly depressing, it led me to think why do people, some of them educated human beings, doubt the findings of science.

At one level my immediate thought was that some humans are ostriches and just ignore unpleasant facts. Smokers continue to smoke when the medical evidence of it being a major contributor to cancer and heart disease is irrefutable. Some people of faith choose to ignore Darwin's work and bizarrely claim the world is only 10,000 years old. I've felt that many meat eaters choose to ignore famine in the third world because meat production makes feeding the world's population so much harder.

Is this the reason for denying climate change ? It seems clear that those involved in the oil and motor industries have strong motives to denigrate climate science. Their pursuit of profit and power will outweigh any slight concern for the future of the planet. Of course climate change deniers go way beyond that, so what other factors are at work. I'm led to conclude that most politics focuses on the short term, governments are driven to tackle the now in order to get re-elected, and many people only focus on the now because ultimately in the words of Keynes "in the long run we are all dead". Embracing climate change means some unpleasant and inconvenient truths- the need for lifestyles to change, that further prosperity and economic growth will not be able to continue in the industrial world, the fact that less for many may prove to be more sustainable than more.

Now I'm not saying that the these issues dominate the thoughts of the bulk of the population, clearly they don't when they are drip fed a diet of talent shows and reality TV. However I sense that many realise that to tackle climate change requires profound changes and that for many reasons they can not handle it. As a result we are propelled towards ecological disaster.

Ashes

There's no sporting contest like it. England v Australia at cricket. Over 130 years of history. This year once again England hold the ashes and go to Australia aiming to retain them. The England team has improved in depth and performance since they were whitewashed in 2007.

The 1st test starts late night, England time. The Gabba in Brisbane, the heat, tension .Think I'll stay up and watch a bit. There's only work in the morning, and cricket symbolises much of what England means to me.

Today via social network site Twitter, my son Graham and I took part in a question and answer session with Alec Stewart, one of my all time favourite cricketers, a legend of Surrey and England. Just terrific.

Looking Back

Sunday isn't a day I associate with non league football. Premiership fans have to take whatever time the Tv channels decide, but for non league fans football means 3.00 Saturday. Well, not if you're in the FA Cup and are told that your game will be televised on Thursday evening. Not surprisingly the manager and coaching staff knowing that players require recovery time,negotiated a Sunday afternoon kick off.

We set off early to avoid the happy band of shoppers who by now with 33 days to Xmas will be flocking to Lakeside and Bluewater. Our aim was to set up the Silent Auction well before the 12.30pm start. The journey took less time than expected and we were ready to go, by the time the auction ended at 2.30pm, it was calculated that we'd made around £3000.

The game itself seemed to be all over inside 30 minutes, the Dons stormed into a 3-0 lead, which arguably should have been more. However Thursday night caught up with the players and in the closing minutes they were hanging on for a 3-2 victory, which took the Dons back to the top of the league. Just the confidence boost that's needed ahead of next Saturday's cup game v Stevenage.

After the game, we stayed the night in Tooting. Strange going back to the house and road where I grew up. Although I've visited many times over the years, staying there still seemed unreal,. I went out to get my paper and groceries this morning and saw a wave of people heading to the Underground,a scene that I've not witnessed for many years.

Whilst on the theme of Looking Back, 20 years ago today, Thatcher resigned. Sadly her ideas have lived on. I described her to students recently as the archtypical"marmite" politician. Its either love or hate, and I comfortably fit into the second group. Will show film on her tomorrow, become aware in last week that my students were not even alive when she came crashing down in November 1990.

Happiness is ....

In the last couple of weeks there has been much talk of the government trying to measure whether people are happy. Reasonable enough given that success criteria in the past seems to only focus on wealth. However yesterday showed me how fragile happiness can be.

Firstly I've gone down with a Man Cold. I've spent the last 36 hours sneezing and blowing my nose. Put mildly it's made me miserable.

Then on Saturday afternoon I watched Arsenal go from 2-0 up to lose 2-3 to Spurs. Black mood, anger, repeatedly asking the question how? It's the first time that Spurs have beaten Arsenal at Arsenal since 1993. Well that's not long enough for me.

Later today off to AFC Wimbledon for the game against Kettering and the Silent Auction, my main fund raising event of the year, it seems that after expenses we should top £2000, which is very good given the financial situation in the country.

Bird on the Wire

Friday night and BBC 4 are showing three hours of Leonard Cohen, now I've come to accept that Leonard is not everyones idea of a fun Friday night. Perhaps because I've gone down with a "Man Cold" I've been looking forward to seeing the programmes. The Bird on the Wire film showcases Leonard's 1972 European tour. As well as concert footage there were short interviews and some behind the scenes stuff including Leonard being propositioned by a young woman.

I first heard Leonard Cohen when I purchased a sampler album called " The rock machine turns you on". Strange really because to describe Cohen as rock stretches a point beyond reaking pint. Anyway from hearing Sisters of mercy, I was a convert.

His first two albums were compulsory at university, like many I was attracted to the imagery of his songs, his biblical themes and uninhibited sexual references. Yet Leonard was already 37 when he toured in 1972, nearly a generation older than many other of the singer songwriters that acquired popularity.

His songs from those two albums have stood the test of time, and come 2008 at the age of 74 he returned to the O2 Arena in London in a concert that will live long in the memory. On Friday night I reflected that I've been listening to him for over 40 years, and for the past 20 yeas Sisters of Mercy has often been on my lips as I arrive at work in the morning.

Leonard is proof that talent transends age. The music industry seems to make a virtue out of youth, now 76 Leonard goes marching on towards closing time.