I said to K this morning that I still couldn't quite believe we'd won the Ashes. You didn't, she said, they're still playing in hell. I refrained from saying that that was exactly where we seemed to be playing Australia in the 1990s. Yesterday I put all of my newspaper clippings in a scrapbook with, to borrow from Gideon Haigh, all the concentration of a small boy over a complicated jigsaw. It was an amazing summer. Three things I will remember especially: (a) Harmison's ball to dismiss Clarke at Edgbaston; (b) Strauss' catch off Gilchrist at Trent Bridge and (c) see below. 

A marvellous article from the LRB comparing the fortunes of the superpowers, cricketing and otherwise, is here. Possibly the only article which draws the comparison between Kim Hughes and Jimmy Carter, but none the less entertaining for it.

Prebends Bridge, Durham. August 2005. (Courtesy H.J. Thomas) 

The Happy Couple. Morpeth, August 2005 

Hello Tom! Silver Street, Durham, August 2005 

Kriegersvej, Aarhus. February 2005. 

Durham in the Autumn, from Prebends Bridge. 

A musical baton.

Total volume of music files on my computer: 47GB.

The last CD I bought was: D.I. Go Pop by Disco Inferno

Song playing right now: The Elements by Tom Lehrer

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:

1. A Year in Song: Mary Margaret O'Hara
2. The Viaduct: Bill Wells and Katrina Mitchell
3. MBV Arkestra: Primal Scream
4. Temporary Like Achilles: Bob Dylan
5. Blanket Roll Blues: Scott Walker

I dropped the baton in the river; the world needs fewer batons.