You know, that thing that reputedly comes before a fall but I hope I am safe in saying that whatever comes afterwards I thought that England’s victory over Pakistan yesterday was one of the most pleasing days sport I had seen for quite some time. Two run outs, a wicket for that archetype of a proud Yorkshireman and Englishman, Matthew Hoggard on his home ground. From here it becomes a little more difficult to write about in this day and age and I don’t want to be accused or being patronising or superficial, but the performances of Monty Panesar and Sajid Mahmood were an absolute joy to behold, and not purely in terms of their cricketing performance, though that should be enough, and in future I hope it will be enough and go unremarked upon for any other reason. These are clearly two talented cricketers, who show every bit as much pride in playing for there country as Hoggy does and could spend many years on the world stage given the levels of ability shown, Monty turns the ball, I suspect I am too young to remember the last exponent of that art to wear an England sweater, disregarding short term experiments with wrist spin from time to time, and Sajid clearly has the pace but maybe more importantly, the application, witness the improved seam position, to be shaking up Test batsmen for quite some time to come.

Yes I know it’s just a game of cricket and not a design for life but maybe it was just a little more than a game?

I don’t envy anyone who has any sort of a part to play in resolving the situation in the Middle East at the moment and I am certainly not an apologist for Blair, however I do have a modicum of sympathy for him vis-à-vis criticism the walking dental advert is getting from the press, his erstwhile colleagues and every man and his dog who feels he needs to bump his gums at the present time. I certainly don’t have a solution, nor do these self righteous whiners who seem to be getting air time or column inches whenever they break their verbal wind because, without exception, they all believe that we should have a ‘policy’ and all seem to believe that by having a ‘policy’ in this country, the matter is therefore resolved. What we do or say in this country is of no consequence to either party presently belting seven shades out of one another, Israel will stop when George Dubya says they will, explaining that the aid, arms, economic support etc. will dry up and Hezb’Allah will stop when Iran flicks the switch. The hand wringers in this country seem to be living in the 19th century when diplomacy consisted of the Foreign Office cobbling together some half baked scheme and sending the Royal Navy to explain it to the locals huddled at the end of an impressive number of Quick Firers.

Welcome to the 21st century of impotence and inconsequence, the same bunch that are so very quick to condemn anything which has the vaguest whiff of colonialism still fondly imagine that we still have the power to project and enforce policy on third parties merely by espousing one and are therefore so very vexed when they believe the country is adopting the wrong stance. Save yourselves the angst, shut up and piss off on holiday because what our policy is DOESN’T MATTER, no one is listening……………………………………………………