It's been fun (not) converting from one template to a set of others, but I'm just about back in business except for the newsfeed pages. Damn, Brian Lara got out.

I'm in the middle of an upgrade from Wordpress 1.2.2 Mingus to Wordpress 1.5-Beta-2005-01-17 (which has already been replaced by Wordpress 1.5-Beta-2005-01-18 as if I care). There are quite a few structural changes for the better, but because I am using a beta release, and a nightly build at that, upgrading is not a simple task. In particular, I have to rebuild most of the page templates and style sheets.

There will be a better structure at the end of this, as well as... wait for it... podcasting! But I'll finish this off after a good night's sleep, if such a thing is possible.

Unlike last year, the Golden Globe Awards are not being televised live in Australia today. Channel 10 is replaying them at 8.30 tonight, while E! (on Foxtel Digital, which I do not have) is doing hours of pre-game and post-game shows. Ugh. The awards show starts at midday Sydney time on NBC in the States.

The official web site of the Globes is www.hfpa.org, as in Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

February 1 is the tenth anniversary of the aus.sport.rugby-league newsgroup, the first newsgroup on Usenet to specialise in the discussion of the sport of rugby league. I know this because I was its creator :-)

^BAN_ZIM: 64.2 Enamul Haque jnr to Mpofu, OUT: Allover! tosses up, outside off and spins away, tries to defends it on the front foot, gets the outside edge and Ashraful takes a good sharp catch at silly point
^BAN_ZIM: Zimbabwe 154/10, Partnership of 9
^BAN_ZIM: CB Mpofu c Mohammad Ashraful b Enamul Haque jnr 5 (9b 1x4 0x6)
^BAN_ZIM: DT Hondo 6* (12b 1x4) Enamul Haque jnr 22.2-5-45-6 (4nb)
^BAN_ZIM: That's it, Bangladesh won this match by 226 runs
^BAN_ZIM: Bangladesh have made history - a first Test win after a long wait

The lime tree inside the boundary at St Lawrence's Ground, Canterbury is no more.

The 290 year-old tree, which was expected to have to come down in the near future, was blown over during wild storms on Friday. According to today's Telegraph, the Kent CCC is yet to decide whether to replace it with a sapling planted by the late Jim Swanton in 1999, or to have a boring old tree-less outfield the same as everyone else. At least we still have the VRA Ground in Amstelveen for arborial diversity.

In the end it took about an hour short of four days for Australia to wrap up the series. Not quite as close as the equivalent Test on the SCG 32 years earlier which set alight my interest in the game.

I was out at the SCG on Day Four as a guest of the Cricket New South Wales Ford Volunteer Program. Not quite the crowd of earlier days of the Test, about 14000, and the Bradman and O"Reilly Stands remained closed all day. A pretty warm day in Sydney, but I had a good vantage point in the shade beneath the large scoreboard (and without its distraction).

As I write this, Bangladesh are four wickets away from their first-ever Test win. It might be tempting to think that a win over a youthful Zimbabwean eleven cheapens the honour a bit, but I for one am not going to scoff at that. Cricket should be expanding its constituency, not clinging on to an exclusive post-imperial elite club. As with the inauguration of the ICC Intercontinental Cup last year, a Bangladesh Test win can only be a positive in expanding the game's horizons.

The Sudanese Government and the SPLA have signed the peace deal in Nairobi bringing their long civil war to an end.

This does not, however, affect the separate, and very tragic, conflict in Darfur.

Read the report from the BBC.

Everyone's favourite genetic plant modifier, Monsanto (NYSE:MON), is paying $US 1.5 million in fines after being caught offering bribes to the Indonesian Government.