Congratulations to Roger Federer on winning an epic match to take yet another Wimbledon title. Apparently this has been a poor twelve months for the man (in which he won the us and French opens as well as Wimbledon!). I’d hate to see a really good year.

Andy Roddick, playing in probably the best form of hi career must be wondering what he had to do to beat the man. He rolled back the clock somewhat to provide excellent tennis and entertainment throughout the Championships.

Andy Murray, who he beat in the semis, will have more chances to impress on the world stage. Grass isn’t his best surface, but it seems certain that he will win a grand slam tournament at some point in the not-too-distant future.

The English cricket team have racked up a well-deserved 2-0 series victory over the West Indies with a convincing win in chilly Chester-le-Street. James Anderson displayed excellent mastery of the swinging ball to blow away the West Indies’ lower order with a series of deliveries that will have the Australians hoping that he can’t repeat this sort of form. Bresnan chipped in with his first (but could they be his last also) test wickets, and Collingwood took his first catch as wicket-keeper, although I don’t think Prior will be too worried about his place.

It was a shame in this series that the West Indies weren’t entirely committed, and that the authorities thought it necessary to play the games so early in the season, and in the cold weather. That England won in preparation for the Ashes was vital, but they’d have preferred a stiffer test.

So who will turn out for England in the Ashes – assuming Flintoff is fit, here would be my selection, which is not too controversial:

1. Strauss
2. Cook
3. Bopara
4. Pietersen
5. Collingwood
6. Prior
7. Flintoff
8. Broad
9. Swann
10. Anderson
11. Panesar

The reason I include Monty is that the Australians are now without any world-class spinner, and if we have turning pitches, then England now have the spin armoury to really attack Australia with spin. Swann is surely now first choice spinner, and is an excellent batsmen to appear at 9 in the batting order. Broad’s seam and Anderson’s mastery of the swinging ball provide a perfect opening pair, with Flintoff the go-to bowler at any time of need. And if one of Panesar or Swann is stuggling, there is always Pietersen’s off-spinners for a change.

Prior should now naturally bat above Flintoff, since the latter’s batting is no-where near the force it once was, and Broad should look to become a competent no. 7 in the future – a test century should be his for the taking in the next couple of years. Swann is also capable of making a test century and England have the longest batting line up in a very long time.

We’ll see what happens in the coming 7 weeks!

Another excellent day’s cricket for England at Chester-le-Street; it’s a shame so few people turned up to watch. Ravi Bopara scored his third century in successive innings and must be feeling that he cannot do much more to cement a place for the Ashes. An interesting statistic about Bopara is that this third successive century was preceede by three ducks in a row (two first ball) in his three previous innings.

This potentially interesting fact, led me to email the commentators on www.cricinfo.com for the first time, asking whether this was a first (no answer), but they posted my comment, including a comment of their own about the “tremendous quantities of geekery”. Finally my reward, and a proud moment. It’s in the 80th over of the first day’s full commentary.

Otherwise, not much to talk about – Alastair Cook continues to score runs, despite looking a little out of touch still, but if he can do so, then all credit; he needs to push on to a really big score tomorrow – his current best of 139* isn’t quite good enough. England will need to aim for 500, and hope the pitch deteriorates, otherwise a boring draw is on the cards.

Since the International cricket season has now kicked off, I should get back to what I like doing, which is pontificating about it! Since I failed to watch any of today’s play (no satellite), I only have the Cricinfo(TM) commentary to go on, so there’s not really very much I can say!

An excellent day’s work from England’s new no. 3 Bopara – some might suggest that Bell’s weight of runs in County Cricket so far, or Vaughan’s reputation should have secured one of them the slot, and I for one would have liked Vaughan to have a final chance to demonstrate his undoubted talent, but Bopara has silenced the critics today, albeit with the help of some hopeless catching. Hopefully he can press on with the tail tomorrow.

At the top of the order, Cook again did the hard work and then failed, and will need to convert at least one start in this series if he is to be a serious contender in the Ashes – although I suspect he’ll play anyway, in the absence of anyone else good enough. The in-form batsman, Strauss didn’t really get going, and KP didn’t get a chance.

Lower down, Broad continues to impress with the bat, and a test century is only a matter of time away. Swann, a man with a first-class best of 183, is a very able no.9, and England for once have an impressively long batting line up.

West Indies, despite being let down by their catching, will be fairly happy with the scoreline at the end of the day, and if Edwards can complete his 5-wicket haul early on the Second Day, they will think themselves in an excellent position.

Like so many people’s, my job often involves periods away from home, and now is one of those times. Far from Oxfordshire, I’m currently (for two weeks) living out of a suitcase in a hotel in Ramsbottom (comedy name, not made up) in Lancashire just north of Manchester. For most of the time I’m working with another colleague from my office, so we eat together, so it’s not just a case of work during the day, and then more work on your own in the evening.

My colleague is, however, on another engagement today, and so it’s one of those evenings where the only real option is to do a bit of work, put on the snooker, and order room service, which is terribly decadent and lazy, but I think better than sitting alone in a restaurant looking a little bit silly. I may be wrong though!

One of the plus sides of this job is that at the weekend I get to see my family, who are also of the Northern persuasion, living just over the Pennines in Yorkshire, so I’ll call in and see them tomorrow evening, before heading back to Oxford for the long weekend, and to meet up with an old friend – Simon MacHale of quasimodal fame no less – to show him what May Day in Oxford has to offer!

Another benefit of work related travel is that my hotel this time has a lovely pool, jacuzzi and sauna, so I’m feeling pretty chilled out this evening!

Looking out over the bow

My friend Helen lives on a houseboat, which is convenient, since like a snail she can take her home with her. The other weekend she decided to use the boat to get to a wedding, and requested some company/help returning home the day after. I dutifully took my car to Moulsford, a beautiful village just south of Wallingford, and joined her on a lovely sunny day for the 18 mile trip back to Oxford. Since it is an upstream journey, and there are four locks, this would take us the next 6 hours.

Fortunately, the sun was shining, and Helen had organised various suitable items for lunch – sandwiches, wine, chilled beer – and so we gently pootled up river at at least 3.5 miles an hour (when the current wasn’t too strong). The nice thing about a mode of transport which really can’t get above 5 miles per hour is that it is perfectly acceptable form to have a small glass of wine whilst driving it.

The remains of lunch - which included Strawberries and cream

Upstream locks make for particular fun; since you are entering from the bottom of the lock, the lock sides are often well above you! For two of the four locks, the sides were reachable by a reasonable leap from the roof of the moving boat in order to get ropes around the bollards. For the other two, we needed to aim for the steps at the centres of the lock. In one case this involved what was effectively a race between my ability to get up the steps (which faced downstream) in the opposite direction of travel to the boat, whilst getting to the top before i ran out of rope length and got yanked back down them – I just made it.

Travelling through oxfordshire on the Thames really makes you appreciate the beauty of the area – Oxfordshire is not renowned for exciting landscapes, but there are many beautiful ones, often containing old and rather large houses! There are also several beautiful bridges – for the railway to London and roads too.

So, in all I had a fantastic day, and when I eventually got a lift back home, it was in a convertible MG too. Fab fun, fab company, fab day!

A view from the river

Small traffic jam as we approach the bridge under the main line to London Paddington

The beautiful road bridge at Clifton Hampden

The Thames at Moulsford

Just a brief note today- I had the great joy of finally meeting one of my longest friends’ baby today (cue debate on apostrophe position … ). Bethany is now one and cirumstances have prevented me meeting her up until now. Obviously was lovely to see her and her mum and dad all looking so well and to watch mum and dad still cooing over her cuteness despite her efforts to the contrary!

I travel from Oxford to Reading by train most days, since I live in the former, and work in the latter. Travelling by train is an excellent opportunity to observe interest human behaviours (trying to avoid sounding too David Attenborough here!).

Two particular favourites:

1. The etiquette related to taking seats. Usually I get a train which starts at Oxford, and there are always plenty of seats. Obviously the table seats tend to fill first, since if you want to work on a laptop these are the only seats with enough space to work comfortably. This isn’t particularly interesting. What interests me, as a scientist, is how people fill up the rest of the seats (which are usually in twos). A commuter train is full of people travelling alone, and unless one has to, very rarely do two people sit together – just like electrons in atoms (see my chemistry pages). As the train fills, however, and people need to join someone, there is very much a gender split – women sit with women, and men with men. Surely the average businessman is not so threatening that a woman travelling alone would need to avoid sharing a seat with one? Or has our current culture brought us to the stage where we tend to trust no-one? I hope not.

2. This is a much less serious point, but is a terrible reflection on the pressures of life. At busy times, there are fast trains from Reading to London Paddington every 3-5 minutes, so why, every day, do people come barging through those getting off the train, down to the platform, and then claw at the locked doors as the train is trying to pull out, when they could just walk to the next platform, and get the following train, which is often already arriving at the station. I see this everyday – what is there to gain? What’s the point. We all have busy lives, but surely 5 minutes delay in your journey won’t affect you too much, and besides, if it’s that important, get up five minutes earlier. Besides, it’s dangerous, moving train, lots of people, crowded platform – accident waiting to happen.

As a trainee accountant, it is part of my nature and job that I should be interested in the budget, but what a lot of nothing the budget was. Full of interpretations and facts that most of us knew already – there’s a recession, job losses and government borrowing are on the up, and taxes will have to rise. So, taxes on the rich will rise to 50%. Looks good on paper (unless you are very well off), but doesn’t raise that much money, and the particularly well off are good at organising their wealth to avoid very high taxes. The idea of removing relief for these people on pension contributions seems very unfair. First you are taxed at 50% on the earnings, then you get 20% relief on putting them into the pension, and then when the pension pays out your annuity, you get taxed at 40 or 50 % again. Taxed twice on the same money. You may as well not bother with the pension.

The usual increases in alcohol and fuel duty will make a small difference, but squeeze margins in our already struggling pubs and restaurants, and affect those who rely on their cars for work – nurses etc.

So, all in all, no give at all, and only a small amount of take, and the mountain of government and personal debt continues to rise. Time for a rethink? Or an election? Both and soon.

Cricket’s law-makers have had a busy week. After deciding (rightly in my opinion) not to outlaw the reverse sweep earlier in the week, they rapidly agreed to change the interval rules for One Day Internationals in the wake of the fiasco in the 2nd ODI between England and New Zealand.

New Zealand themselves may feel robbed by the 19th over abandonment (20 are needed to make a match in an ODI), but they would have needed 7 runs off that 20th over without the loss of a wicket – not easy in the pouring rain, so really it was still anybody’s match. The fact that they were playing the final overs in almost blackness and in that rain is the issue here. The rules at the time state that the innings-interval should be 30 minutes, even in a rain-shortened match (the teams had already had lunch long before play began). This interval actually occupied the best weather and light of the match, and with a forecast of worsening weather would have been very frustrating.

At least the laws have now been changed so that umpires and captains can agree to shorten the interval (to last between 10 and 30 minutes) if they so wish, with the ICC match referee being the final arbiter in case of a disagreement. This is in the best interests of cricket (like allowing the reverse sweep). Well done to the lawmakers – twice in a week!