Six of the Best 82

Disgruntled Radical details Labour's long history of gerrymandering. He also provides our illustration, which I take to be a gerrymander.

Not many of us spend our birthday appearing on local radio and television because of a blog post. But Niles's Blog did.

The Futility Monster argues that the SATs system has no integrity: "There is no reason to keep the SAT system. We are told that parents “like” them. Well, who wouldn’t, when you’re told that Little Johnny is a shining model pupil getting outstanding scores in everything. Yeah, him and everyone else. It achieves nothing but feed you a lie because it’s exactly what you want to hear."

An important literary discovery is reported by Solipsism and Me. A host of early Molesworth pieces by Geoffrey Willans that appeared in Punch but have never been published in book form.

The Happy Apple has been to the Workhouse Museum at Southwell in Nottinghamshire.

The apparent lack of realism over whether Andrew Flintoff will ever play again is clouding his reputation, argues The Old Batsman. Today, "he looks as hapless and uncomfortable as Ian Botham did when me met that bloke who was going to make him the next James Bond and he was forced to parade around in a ludicrous striped blazer talking about Hollywood".