This website is back (I think) after 36 hours off the air. Apparently the server on which this site is hosted had some sort of massive failure, and has now been replaced and the data restored. Well, Sunday's backup restored anyway. Any updates to the site in the last few hours before the crash (about midday Monday Sydney time) are lost, but I don't recall any off hand in any case.

Today, the first Sunday in September, is Father's Day in Australia and New Zealand. On Friday it was announced that Steve Waugh is Australia's Father of the Year for 2005. My congratulations to him.

England women's all-rounder Katherine Brunt, as quoted by Sam Wheeler in Saturday's Yorkshire Post:

"I lost 22 stone in six months," she said. "I found I could bowl a lot quicker and my action was quicker."

Well, yes, I'm sure you would...

Essex v Australia, Chelmsford, 3-4 September 2005
Stumps Day One

Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch.

- George W Bush, Mobile (Alabama), 2.9.05 (source)

Thanks to everyone who has given feedback about The Net Sessions, which I think I can now safely say is the first podcast series devoted exclusively to cricket. I especially thank those people who have given suggestions about tweaking the sound quality.

Every Test match in the 2005 Ashes has thrown up a new populist question in the tabloids. "Was this the greatest Test ever?" "Is cricket the new football?" "Is cricket the new sex?" "Is Flintoff the new Beckham?" "Is Pietersen the new Posh?" and so on.

Being the 46 year-old nerd that I am, I prefer to go for the more boring issues. In this edition of "If 42 Is The Answer Then It Must Be A Bloody Stupid Question", I ask: "Why are the Aussies getting so damn little match practice on this tour?"

With New Orleans being hit on Monday by the savagery of Hurricane Katrina - though not as catastrophically as was feared - I'm putting the RSS feed from Metroblogging New Orleans up on the site (see left). This also links through to media sites in New Orleans and Louisiana. There's talk of looting, alas, and some discussion, which I think unseemly at this time, of politicisation of the tragedy.

It's now eight months since the December 26 tsunami. It was never the "Asian Tsunami" as too many have described it, and I've written about Somalia before. This report from IRIN:

YEMEN: Tsunami damage underestimated, FAO

...this series is sort of like a month-long pass to an Alfred Hitchcock film festival...
- Prem Panicker, Sightscreen, 28.8.05

So, in a series that began with Dial M for Murder and continued with Spellbound, Notorious and Vertigo, England leads Australia two Tests to one. Psycho opens at The Oval on September 8.

Just a few observations after yet another awesome Test match: