My complaint about the hidden highlights package for the Ashes seems more justified given that having retained the urn, last nights events have led many news bulletins during the day with David Cameron even managing to get his twopennorth in on some reports. To be fair he was probably responding to a direct question but it did sound like bandwagon jumping. This merely underlines the ridiculousness of such a major sporting event not being freely available on terrestrial TV. Well done England though. It would be nice, obviously, to win the last test in Sydney and take the series 3-1 which would be a fair reflection on the way the series has gone so far.

                                              ******************************

   After the initial jockeying for position the Premiership should start to take form in the New Year and as yet there has been no outstanding team threatening to run away with the title. It has not exactly been a golden season so far with all the title contenders dropping more points than they would have expected often after a couple of good results with the prospect of taking the initiative looming the pressure seems to have got to all teams and points lost. It certainly makes things interesting and with the transfer window due to open the following month may see the main contenders pull away from the pack as some may strengthen (Man City for sure) and others knuckle down and do what they are used to (Man Utd and Chelsea). The latter is no guarantee despite historical evidence if the first half of the season is anything to go by and any new signings are not always the answer: some may take time to gel and the bigger names will most likely be unavailable until the summer.