Ashes to ashes

England have beaten Australia in the 5th Test – I’m talking cricket here – and won the Ashes. This is not what most of us expected. Jennie Walker, guest blogger, writes:

‘Rules, play and skill – it’s their job, for godsake. Twenty-two players and one small red ball, and there are only so many things you can do with it. (It can be more fun without skill, but at that level it tends to be slapstick.) Add in a slice of luck or, powered up by adrenaline, super-skill. Hard to tell the difference: millimetres, a fraction of a second. Given an accumulation of these moments – one tends to prompt another – one side wins, the other loses, a nation celebrates.’

If Jennie sounds less than ecstatic, it may be because Waterstone’s, this week’s bogeymen, don’t seem to be stocking the paperback of her 23 for 3 (concerning cricket and infidelity; ‘I loved it’ – Mick Jagger), and authors take these things personally.