Ah, it must be tough being a tabloid reporter in the silly season.
My best wishes to the Urbans on their future bundle of joy. Meanwhile, I feel a deep sorrow for Steve Bucknor. He's done nothing more heinous than have an off day (well, an off five days in fact).
There's so many strands to follow at the moment. Let's start with the central issue.
Harbhajan Singh has been found guilty by ICC match referee Mike Procter of a Level 3 breach of the Code of Conduct that relates to comments vilifying players on the basis of, among other options, race, ethnicity or colour. The full ICC press release concerning the hearing can be read here.
Harbhajan is alleged to have used the word "monkey" to Andrew Symonds - though I notice that there seems to be no finding explicitly stating that he actually called Symonds a "monkey".
There appear to have been five witnesses giving evidence at Sunday night's hearing in addition to the two protagonists. Sachin Tendulkar, who was Bhajju's batting partner at the time, and four Australian fielders: Ponting, Hayden, Gilchrist and Michael Clarke. Neither umpire witnessed the alleged remark.
Today, 8 January 2008, is the centenary of Australia's first rugby league club, Newtown RLFC.
Known for many years as the Bluebags, Newtown was given the nickname the Jets by then-coach Jack Gibson as an act of American cultural cringe. Alas, the name has stuck.
Absurdity follows absurdity in the latest contretemps that positions world cricket somewhere on the spectrum between WWE wrestling and the personal life of Britney Spears. Frankly, it has elements of both. There's the hyped-up petulance and faux conflict of the prima donnas dressed up as professional sportsmen.
A bit of preamble before I write my thoughts about the off-field events of the past 24 hours.
I have seen very little of the Sydney Test, won by Australia late yesterday afternoon. I was on holidays with my daughter for most of the week and listened to the second half of Sunday's play on the radio at home. (If I really wanted to, I could probably have made the dash across to the ground when they threw the gates open for free at 4.30pm.)
My hosting provider has upgraded my site to PHP 5, now that PHP 4 has become an unsupported product. I'm taking advantage of the occasion to upgrade Drupal on this blog to version 5.5.
Consequently, things may look a little odd (or not even work at all) for the next day or two till I have finished the rebuild.
And then, lots to say about the Over-the-top hoo-haa over the Sydney Test.