ASHES TIME

Is it just me, or does the cover of the current edition of the Radio Times have an inbuilt contradiction...?

All of that guff about "How to be happy" (and, if you read the article, it really is a lot of awful guff) and then promoting the start of the latest Ashes series at exactly the same time, which, I just know, is going to lead to weeks and months of nail-biting agony (well, for me at least), as I still cannot allow myself to feel the slightest spark of anything approaching hope...

And then, once this set of games is over, no matter who's managed to snatch some kind of result out of the ordeal (because I can never, ever, EVER allow myself the kind of smug, complacency that some do), the whole bally thing starts all over again in Australia at the back end of the year.

Ah well...

The day has come...

("It's just a game, it's just a game...")

Given that we've just had an unbroken spell of sunshine, and that "British" sport has just had a resurgence of sorts, it's almost certain to rain non-stop in the midlands for the next five days, I suppose.

("Pretty lucky for some of them if it does..." I can't help but find myself thinking in that impartial way I try to have about this most beautiful of games.)

Let battle (or whatever slightly less portentous term you wish to use there) commence...