September 2010

Pakistan's tour of England is set to stagger across the line to complete everyone's contractual obligations this week. Though it is, inside a further realm of contractual fantasy, actually England's tour of Pakistan being staged in England.

The tour has been damaged by allegations of spot-fixing in the form of deliberate front-foot no-balls intended to defraud bookmakers engaging in the astonishingly greedy practice of spot-betting. For the first time ever, the ICC's Anti-Corruption Unit has laid charges against a number of Pakistani international players.

As we pay tribute this weekend on the 40th anniversary of the death of Jimi Hendrix, I've embedded a video of probably his most famous live performance, from Woodstock, NY in 1969, his rendition of John Stafford Smith's 1778 composition "To Anacreon In Heaven".

You may know it better as that song about Bombs Bursting In Air. I blogged more about its history on the occasion of May Day 2006, but for now, take it away Jimi:

September 18, 1970: The sudden, tragic death at the age of 27 in London of an absolute musical genius, Jimi Hendrix.

It's taken over a year for us to know this, but The Oval Test of the 2009 Ashes was Andrew Flintoff's last game of competitive cricket. The losing battle with injury was finally conceded on the last day of a, for him, empty 2010 English season.

It was all so much simpler back in the days when I did my school assignment on the Gorton Ministry. The most complex part then was having separate ministers for Army, Navy and Air Force. Even the Minister for Munitions was long gone by then.

All matters relating to communications were handled by the Postmaster-General. We had (and indeed, still do) an Attorney-General, although never a Surgeon-General - and alas, no Witchfinder-General.

Welcome to the premiere of Sky News Australia's kinder, gentler, interactive political talk show and weekly engineering tutorial all wrapped in one, "Building Bridges with Warren Truss".

This week's special guests:

Tony Abbott.

"we will hold them ferociously to account because that is what the Australian people will expect of us." *

Barnaby Joyce.

"You do it once, you do it right and you do it with fibre."

- The Member for New England, Tony Windsor, on the National Broadband Network as one of his reasons for supporting the Labor government, Canberra, 7.9.10

Two weeks since the Australian federal election. The voters have done their job, and done it well (except perhaps for those who followed the Mark Latham "blank vote" line). The numbers have fallen in almost a complete tie. So be it.