Ashes to ashes

Delia, eh? She can cook, she's rich and she owns a football club. She even writes and if you follow her recipes, guess what? They work. Is there anything more a man could ask for in a woman? She may not have Nigella's eroticism but then she didn't have a famous dad to help her on her way either.
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This is how it works. You are, basically, a football writer who gets given the title of 'chief sports correspondent' or similar, of a national paper. You've never really had that much time for cricket but the choice is going to Australia in December or staying at home and going to Manchester only to find the game cancelled. It's a no-brainer.
What this means, for readers of tabloid and midmarket newspapers in particular, is that instead of getting insightful cricket coverage by someone who has grown up with the game, you get platitudes from someone whose real love is West Ham. Nothing against West Ham but just as I don't have any interest in reading Mike Atherton or Derek Pringle's account of West Brom versus Newcastle, neither do I want to read the latest piece about the Ashes by someone who has to go on to Google to look up Googly.
It's not like I don't like these guys. I was at school with half of them, as were some of you reading this, but, let's face it, they're on a jolly and overshadowing the genuine cricket writers employed by the papers in question.
And they overcompensate. They look up so many cricket expressions and terminology that their pieces are overladen with references to opening up the bat and wrist spinners versus off spinners and urbane nods to former greats of the game that emphasise the fact that, yes, they really have liked cricket for years and years, really. Even though I don't remember any of the Ilford County old boys being particularly into it when we were at school together.
I don't blame them either. An all expenses trip to Australia during a summer Down Under, all expenses paid, which gets them out of having to go Christmas shopping, who wouldn't?
The chief sports writers even have this semi-secret club called The Grand Dukes where every time they get a plum foreign job, one of them chooses the best restaurant in town to go to and they all pile in.
That is why, if you ever see that Sky show Hold The Back Page, everyone who is on it is the size of a house.
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Good grief, ITV are reporting on the Corrie crash as if it's a real incident. The world's gone mad, I tells yer. Mind you, it's the first time I've watched it in years and it was good. Better than Extreme Fisting with Robson Green which I totally misread. Turns out he's angling.
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There's some argument that Wikileaks is going to make it harder for diplomats to do their job correctly in future. My tuppenceworth is this. If a diplomat doesn't do what he considers to be the right thing because he is worried people will find out about it, then perhaps what he, or she, is planning to do is not the right thing after all.
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Two million people are thinking of switching from public transport to their cars next year because of fare rises, delays and congestion. As if. I got a Virgin train to and from Manchester today and a number 20 bus from Walthamstow (you see the world differently from the top of a London bus.) Both were brilliant. I know, it's not much of a rant but that's how it is sometimes.
Ding ding...Solly