Graeme Swann explains how England are producing test-class spinners out of nowhere

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With the arguable exception of Derek Underwood, Graeme Swann is the best English spin bowler of my lifetime. And, a decade after he retired from cricket, the England set up has finally decided it might be a good idea to draw upon his expertise and experience.

In an interview with cricket.com, Swann explains how England have apparently been able to produce two test-class spinners out of nowhere this winter in the shape of Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir:

Numbers-wise, there were a lot of ‘better’ candidates, but according to Swann, the management were clear about the fact that they wanted to look beyond raw numbers.

“We were looking for specific attributes - people who can bowl straight, people who can bowl on turning pitches, people who can generate bounce,” Swann explains England’s selection process.

“County cricket is very, very different to Test cricket in India. And it’s not like we’ve had spinners who were knocking the door down in County cricket.

“It’s not always the people who average well. Averages hide all sorts of things. We didn’t pay too much attention to averages; we were (and still are) after match-winners.”

Swann reveals that multiple spinners, including Parkinson (Callum) and Carson were in contention to make the squad for the India series, but Hartley and Bashir got the nod due to their ability to consistently bring the stumps into play.

“Hartley and Bashir, the reason they ended up on the (India) tour was because they were the two best at what we were after. We were after bowlers that could bowl very straight; bring the stumps into play as often as possible,” Swann reveals. 

Swann also talks about the need for the authorities to learn to tolerate spin-friendly pitches in English domestic cricket:

“We’ve got a massive issue at the moment, in my point of view, wherein spinning pitches in England are still frowned upon,” Swann says.

“You still get docked points if a ball turns excessively on Day 1. I can tell you now, that’s nonsense. If we want to be the best in the world at bowling spin and playing spin, we’ve got to get used to it. 

“The Hyderabad Test pitch (which we saw in the first Test), that would have been docked points back in England. In the end, we actually ended up getting a brilliant Test match.

“Rather than docking points for preparing turning pitches, the players should learn to bat and bowl on them.”

Private Eye's Remote Controller is no cricket fan

It seems churlish to complain about an issue that covers the great Market Harborough bungalow mystery, but the Eye TV column this time is piss poor.

Take its author Remote Controller's description of Andrew Flintoff as "the last-but-one 'next Botham'".

The rest of us stopped talking about "the next Botham" almost 20 years ago when, er, Andrew Flintoff established himself as a test-class allrounder. 

He didn't stay at the peak of his form for many summers, but while he did he was a key member of the side. And because that peak included the classic 2005 Ashes series, Flintoff will be remembered for just as long as Botham will.

And then there is this gem about the series Freddie Flintoff's Field of Dreams:

This series is also disfigured by the BBC's belief that the most important scores in sport now are chromosome counts and position on the A-B-C1-C2-D-E scale.

If you love cricket you want everyone to be able to play it. Indeed, part of the Tory love of the game comes from the soothing picture of the Lord of the Manor and the labourer meeting as equals on the field of play.

And if you want England to do well you want wide participation too, because if the game is confined to the higher classes then there will be a smaller pool of talent to draw on.

But for Remote Controller maintaining privilege seems to be what matters. Because if we do nothing the game will be increasingly dominated by the products of private schools.

He must have loved the Noughties, when England tried Alex Loudon (Eton) and Jamie Dalrymple (Radley) before running out of ideas and being obliged to turn again to Graeme Swann (some ghastly comprehensive somewhere).

An off spin masterclass from Graeme Swann

With the arguable exception of Derek Underwood, the greatest English spin bowler of my lifetime is Graeme Swann.

He was so good that England were happy to go into tests with only three seamers if he was in the side.

Not only that, he was made useful - and somehow infuriating to the opposition - runs at 8 or 9 and was a good slip fielder.

Here he discusses his career and the art of bowling off spin with Michael Atherton.

This is just the sort of analysis you want from a commentator but, with the notable exception this summer of Jeremy Coney, you are unlikely to get it from Test Match Special these days.

Six of the Best 798

"Few watching this week’s pitiful events will have thought that Westminster any longer has much claim to be called the Mother of Parliaments." Chris Grey on another week of Brexit.

Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin reckon universal basic income and rewilding can save society from collapse.

It’s undeniable that the Donald Trump is wrecking the US-led international order. The only question left, says Fred Kaplan, is whether he's doing it on purpose.

"Macfarlane says it has been inspiring to hear of how the book is making a genuine difference. Among the many messages and photographs he has received was one about a school in Whitby in which 170 children left the classroom for a day to visit the woods, beach and riverbanks nearby." Chris Burn reports on the campaign to get Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris's The Lost Words into schools.

Christopher Jackson interviews Henry Blofeld, who gives us a glimpse of the politics of the England dressing room and of the Test Match Special commentary box. (He like Graeme Swann but not Sir Geoffrey.)

Sam Roberts discovers the less-known Northern end of New York's Broadway.

In praise of Vic Marks

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Vic Marks was a high-class bits and pieces player who got to play tests and one-day internationals for England because of his alliance with Ian Botham.

He is now the best summariser on Test Match Special, but is often overlooked by the BBC because he does not seek controversy.

Marks's modesty is one of his most attractive features. I remember him purposely taking a back seat as Michael Vaughan and Graeme Swann launched a double-barrelled assault on England's then hopelessly outdated approach to limited overs cricket, which I suspect had an influence on the authorities.

He gets his due in the latest Guardian Ashes podcast, where he talks to two amiable young Australians Geoff Lemon and Adam Collins.

Marks talks about his own test career, the realities of facing fast bowling and his long friendship with Peter Roebuck.

Matthew Engel on the existential crisis of cricket (and me on the President of the MCC's buttocks)

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Matthew Engel has a magnificent polemic on the state of cricket in today's Guardian:

This is not the game that enraptured me when I was six years old. Nor the game I have written about happily for much of my adult life. 

I don’t care about the St Lucia Zouks. And I won’t care about whatever names the 12-year‑olds in marketing invent for the new made-up teams when the existing English Twenty20 is engulfed by yet another new competition in the years ahead. 

This wretched idea was sold to the county chairmen by bribery – an annual £1.3m sweetener per county – with a tacit undercurrent of threat.

My only interest – in common with many other cricket lovers – is the hope that the damnable thing is a total flop and that we can somehow save the game I once adored, and still love more than the people who have seized control of it.

Do read the whole thing.

You can argue that Twenty20 has led to batsmen being more aggressive and even inventing new shots. And leg spin has returned - if only because every bowler gets caned now.

But there have been greater losses. Few batsmen now seem equipped technically or mentally to play a substantial defensive innings. And I have heard Graeme Swann say that a spinner who has grown up keeping things tight in limited overs cricket has no idea how to take wickets if he is thrown the ball in the fourth innings of a first class match.

At the heart of cricket's crisis - and Peter Tinniswood's Brigadier did once accuse Engel of fomenting revolution in concert with Vic Marks - is money.

As I wrote in my Liberal Democrat News column as long ago as 2004:

People think the cricket authorities are stuffy, but really they are the most shamelessly commercial administrators of all. There are now logos on the players' clothing and painted on the field of play. For the right price you could probably get your company's slogan tattooed on the President of the MCC's buttocks.

Engel asks:

When did you last see a group of children (public schools and Asian community partially excepted) playing cricket without an adult?

For me, I think it was in the summer of 2005 as England finally won back the Ashes and the authorities decided to sell the rights to screen future tests to Sky.

Does English cricket have a drink problem?

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In the course of my day job I went to an event on the psychology and wellbeing of military personnel.

A session on mental health saw general agreement that the biggest issue facing the Forces in that field was alcohol misuse.

I thought of that when I heard about Ben Stokes, Alex Hales and the unpleasantness in Bristol the other evening.

Cricket shares many features with military life – slightly awkward male camaraderie, periods of boredom followed by periods of nerve-shredding excitement, public school officers – and alcohol seems to play the same central role in it.

Alcohol is used as a reward and a consolation, to oil the wheels of socialisation and quite possibly to ease the nerves of the battle-scarred too.

When I reviewed Graeme Swann's book I wrote:

Judging by The Breaks Are Off, English cricket is awash with alcohol. If your county collapses, don’t demand extra net practice: ask for the batsmen to be breathalysed.

Since then I have read Graeme Fowler's Absolutely Foxed, which is even more drink sodden. It has many wise things to say about mental health, but I can't recall Fowler making any connections between the two subjects.

I also note that Swann and Matt Prior, central figures in the England team no so long ago, both rushed to defend Stokes on Twitter, as though he were a teenager at throwing out time rather than a millionaire athlete.

So when we have finished being shocked by Stokes and Hales, maybe we should admit that English cricket has a drink problem?

Hamidullah Qadri: the future of English spin?

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This blog takes an interest in the emergence of young English spin bowlers. Both Adil Rashid and Mason Crane featured here early in their careers.

Today's Guardian introduced us to another bright prospect:

Last month Hamidullah Qadri did much more than become the first person born in the 21st century to play county cricket when, at the age of 16, he was picked for Derbyshire against Glamorgan. 

Qadri did much more than inspire Derbyshire to their first four-day victory in two years when, as an off-spinner, he opened the bowling in the final innings of a match which ended as he took his fifth wicket amid excitement and joy. 

He did much more than explain why Iain O’Brien, who played 22 Tests for New Zealand, calls him The Magician.

Qadri has since been called up to the England under-19 one day squad.

Why is the thought of a new England spinner so enticing?

In part it is because really good ones are so rare. In my long cricket-watching careering England have had precisely two consistent match-winning spinners: Derek Underwood and Graeme Swann.

And in part it's because it is good to craft and guile triumphing over strength and power in the modern game.

But I think it is also because one of my favourite cricket memories is Phil Edmonds' debut against Australia at Headingley in 1975. He took 5-28 in Australia's first innings and they were skittled for 135. (England did not win: the game was abandoned after protesters vandalised the pitch overnight.)

Edmonds was about the first young player I saw being picked for England. In those days a batsman could be promising at 30 and the selectors specialised in recalling former players. Both Ted Dexter and M,J.K Smith, who might as well have batted with dinosaurs, reappeared in the test side.

So as long as there are young England spinners, I will not feel entirely old myself.

Monty Panesar and the psychological toll of sport

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There's a story in today's Guardian suggesting that athletes in individual events are more prone to experiencing depressive symptoms than are athletes in team events.

It quotes the German psychologist Professor Jürgen Beckmann:

“The real problem is with young athletes. Those who receive social support from parents and peers experience much less stress than those who don’t. That’s especially important during adolescence. 

“We found that up to 20% of young athletes do have a problem with higher depression scores. In the general population its range is between 9% and 12%. 

“We are not diagnosing them as being depressive, but on the depression scales they have quite a score.”

As regular readers will know, I am not one to show off, but the story has its origin in one of my press releases in the day job.

Not that athletes in team sports are without problems.

The New Statesman has a revealing interview by Emma John with the former England cricketer Monty Panesar about his psychological health problems and his desire to regain the top of the game:

England, now struggling in the Test series in India, are still looking for a long-term solution to their dearth of spin-bowling options. But it would be a long road for the Luton man to travel if he were to return to the Test side. 

Describing how little cricket he has played in the past few years, Panesar concedes that it left him unmoored. 

“When you haven’t bowled for ages you wonder: ‘What was I like?’ There was a point where I completely forgot what kind of cricketer I was. You just forget, your mind forgets. And then you sort of speak to people who knew you at your best. You ask: ‘What was I like?’”

He was very good.

As time goes on, England's victory in India in 2012-13, in which our spinners Panesar and Graeme Swann played the central role, gets to look more and more impressive.

Graeme Swann batting and bowling in 1999

In my belated review of Graeme Swann's The Breaks are Off I wrote:

Swann was named in the squad for the last test of 1999 as a 20-year-old and then selected for that winter’s England tour of South Africa. By his own admission he was not yet good enough to bowl for England, but then his selection seems to have been based largely on his batting in a televised one-day game.

By a small miracle you can see that batting, and a little of Swann bowling, in the clip above.

Fortunately, he lost that odd prancing approach to the wicket and the nickname of G-Spot before he made his test debut.

Belated book review: The Breaks Are Off by Graeme Swann

The Breaks Are Off
Graeme Swann
Hodder, 2012, £8.99

An off spinner who wins matches on helpful pitches and keeps it so tight on less helpful ones that England need only field four bowlers? It scarcely sounds possible.

Already the Graeme Swann era is receding into history, but it was great fun while it lasted.

As Vic Marks wrote at the time of his retirement:

Only Derek Underwood among the spinners took more wickets for England. Along the way Swann surpassed Laker, Lock, Titmus, Emburey, Edmonds and Illingworth. He would have settled for that at the beginning of December 2008 when, in his 30th year, he had yet to play a Test. Not a bad achievement in a career that lasted only five years.

As cricket fans may recall, Swann was named in the squad for the last test of 1999 as a 20-year-old and then selected for that winter’s England tour of South Africa. By his own admission he was not yet good enough to bowl for England, but then his selection seems to have been based largely on his batting in a televised one-day game.

Not did his self-chosen role as a joker impress an England dressing room in which players were jealous of their place in the pecking order – missing the team bus didn’t help either. By the time he was picked to play in a one-day international, Swann wanted nothing more than to go home.

He went back to Northampton and its spin-friendly pitches, later moving to Nottingham where he learnt to keep things tight when the ball wasn’t turning.

He was not picked for the England one-day team again until the autumn of 2007 and a tour to Sri Lanka. Then, in December 2008, came his test debut in India. He took two wickets in his first over and never looked back.

The Breaks Are Off has been on my shelf for several years, even though it boast it is an “updated edition”. Perhaps I was put off by the title. Reading the book now, some of the incidents it recalls – Matt Prior breaking a window, the Allen Stanford debacle – have mercifully faded from memory.

It was written while Swann was still playing, so he (or his ghostwriter Richard Gibson) had to be diplomatic. Even so, his gentle observation that Kevin Pietersen was not a natural captain caused a row when the book came out.

It was his comments on the Indian doosra bowler Saeed Ajmal – “we certainly have very different actions” – that should have been picked up.

Swann’s sense of humour was more acceptable when he returned to the England set up, and not just to his teammates. His social media double act with Jimmy Anderson, with Tim Bresnan as their stooge, did much to make a ruthless side seem human.

And Vic Marks wrote:

Off the field he was generally a delight. In the press room there was always a tinge of relief when it was announced that Swann was on his way. He shunned the usual banalities, could rarely resist that one-liner and generally provided good copy.

As an analyst on Test Match Special – I suspect the Sky commentary box would remind him too much of his first, unhappy tour – he is hugely impressive. Almost at once he has become central to the programme and gives listeners a rare insight to how test cricketers think.

Two other points have to be made. Judging by The Breaks Are Off, English cricket is awash with alcohol. If your county collapses, don’t demand extra net practice: ask for the batsmen to be breathalysed.

And Swann writes that that word on the circuit when he started out was that if Christopher Martin-Jenkins mentioned you favourably in the Daily Telegraph, you would be picked for England.

Given how often Martin-Jenkins got players names wrong when commentating on the radio, that may explain some of the more astounding selections of those days.

Didn't you used to be Adil Rashid?

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One of the many encouraging things about England's one-day victory over New Zealand was the all-round performance of Adil Rashid.

But it has taken him an awful long time to become an overnight sensation at the age of 27.

Rashid first came to the attention of this blog in July 2006 when he played his first game for Yorkshire and took 6-67. "Won't it be nice if yesterday turns out to have been an historic day in English cricket?" I asked.

The following month he played for England Under-19, when he "followed his first-innings hundred with a devastating 8 for 157".

For several seasons all went well for Rashid, and he played for England in the 2009 World Cup. At the time I blogged:

I was afraid that Adil Rashid would be savaged when he came on, but in the event he bowled beautifully and gave every sign that he is ready to play a part in the Ashes series later this summer.

Perhaps that was a little fanciful and, as it turned out, 2009 saw Graeme Swann establish himself as one of England's greatest spinners.

After that it all went wrong for Rashid. His long struggle back to favour is laid out on Cricinfo by Matthew Roller.

Now Michael Vaughan (whose sympathetic captaincy helped the young Rashid) says he would pick him for this summer's Ashes series.

If nothing else he would be a contrast to the sort of finger spinners I have heard Swann complain about. Those who are good at keeping it tight in a one-day game or the first innings of a match, but are found out when they are asked to turn the ball and win the game in the second.

Happy Birthday Derek Underwood

How can one of the sporting heroes of my youth be 70? It's ridiculous.

Anyway, happy birthday to Derek Underwood. Along with Jim Laker and Graeme Swann, he must be one of England's three greatest spinners since Word War II.

In this video Richie Benaud takes us through two of his greatest performances: against Australia at Headingley in 1972 and against Pakistan at Lord's in 1974.

Both took place on helpful wickets and Underwood had the reputation of being deadly in such conditions.

But he was also a great bowler when things were more in favour of the batsman. I remember him fighting and eventually winning a duel with Greg Chappell in the second innings at Old Trafford in 1997 while taking 6-66 and giving England a victory.

As you will see from the video, Underwood bowled left-arm finger spin but at a faster pace than almost any other bowler. He could even knock stumps out of the ground.

Later. And happy birthday to Ray Illingworth (who was England captain in 1972) who is 83 today.

Six of the Best 498

Suddenly, Britain is disappearing from the world stage, says Anne Applebaum.

Stephen Glenn looks at the long career of James Molyneaux, who died earlier this week.

"The jury’s verdict casts a huge shadow over musical creativity and takes what should be familiar elements of a genre, available to all, and privatizes them." Kal Raustiala and Christopher Jon Sprigman are worried by the Blurred Lines verdict.

"All of these pitiful excuses for an abject performance in a tournament England had cleared the decks to prepare for, resulting in a 5-0 Ashes whomping that accelerated the end of the international careers of Graeme Swann, Kevin Pietersen and Matt Prior while doing terrible damage to several others was presented as if it were something entirely beyond the ECB's control." Righteous indignation from Dave Tickner occasioned by England's abject exit from the World Cup.

 Deep down, did Jeremy Clarkson really want to go on doing Top Gear? Paul Walter turns psychoanalyst.

Curious British Telly remembers Feet First, a football-based situation comedy by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey.

England's cricketers are not the problem: it's the people who run the game

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Nich Hoult writes harshly bur fairly about England's disarray against Australia today:

At the moment it fells like they are making it up on the hoof, as teams do when they dither over sacking a captain and leave it until a few weeks before a tournament. 

Here they dropped Ravi Bopara after 11 consecutive games to replace him with Gary Ballance, who had not played a one-day international for nearly six months. He batted at three too, a position Taylor had occupied with occasional distinction since November. He in turn was demoted to bat at no 6 for the first time in his England one-day career and made a mockery of that move. 

England tinkered with the bowling as well. Chris Woakes had taken the new ball in 15 of his last 16 one-day internationals. This time it went to Stuart Broad for the first time for nearly a year.

Let us remember that in order to give England the best possible chance at the World Cup, the England and Wales Cricket Board asked for two Ashes series to be rearranged.

The result was that England played home and away series against Australia back to back. Among other things, this led to a poisonous atmosphere between the teams as slights and hatreds festered through the two series rather than being given time to die down.

It also finished the careers of at least two of England's best players: Matthew Prior and Graeme Swann. As the latter was the best spinner we had found in 50 years, this was no small matter.

More and more, I am convinced the problem is not the England players (who are doing their best) but the people who run the game in this country.

Liberal England in 2014: Part 1

January

I wrote about Sarah Teather and her magic carpet: "Whatever its motivation, a decision to walk away from party politics voluntarily is rarely the sign of a bad person."

The Coalition's Annoyance Bill annoyed me, but at least I discovered the site of Leicester's first railway station - see the picture below.

Liberal England reached the milestone of 10,000 posts.

I published a guest post remembering childhood days among the lead-mining waste of Snailbeach: "The white hillocks presented endless scope for playing. Can't have been very healthy when you think about it!"

Mike Hancock's worrying attitude to human rights in Eastern Europe was dissected and a power ballad marked the retirement of Graeme Swann.

February

I argued that England's dropping of Kevin Pietersen was a sign of weak management.

The loss of the sea wall at Dawlish revived interest in the idea of an inland railway route to Cornwall.

Nigel Farage went to see the flooded Somerset Levels and I offered some literary maps for a drowned England and reread William Mayne's The Member for the Marsh with the floods in mind.

And I recalled Liberator's finest hour - the Runner and Riders spread in our 1984 Liberal Assembly issue.

March

I discovered Tristram Hunt's past in the Cambridge Footlights and considered Malcolm Saville and the pubs of Leintrwardine.

The government gave £1m for the historic buildings around Richard III's grave - there's one of them below.

Liberal England visited Holy Trinity in the Hope Valley in Shropshire and celebrated its 10th birthday - "It will spend the day climbing trees, shooting up, swatting for SATS or whatever it is 10-year-olds do these days."

I discovered the case of the MP who was swept away in a balloon and never seen again and also discovered Big Mama Thornton - the Peggy Mount of the blues.

Vince Cable gave a Commons master class and I explored the Melton Mowbray edgelands.

How England can win the cricket world cup

As the rain fell at Bristol this morning, Vic Marks, Michael Vaughan and Graeme Swann explained what is wrong with England's approach to one-day internationals and what can do to put it right.

It is riveting listening for any cricket fan, so catch the podcast of it on the Test Match Special website before it disappears. You have a week.

If you reading this after it has gone, let me recommend Down at Third Man. I suspect the Squire will agree with the pundits' prescription.

Swann Song - a power ballad for England's great spinner

There was a lot to enjoy in last night's Not Just Cricket. We got an honest analysis of England's failure in Australia, while the bromance between Graeme Swann and Jimmy Anderson reminds us that there is a lot to like about this team if only the players are allowed to express themselves.

I also like the way that my teenage hero Mike Brearley has become an almost mythic figure for modern players. As another BBC page reports it:

Swann also gave his backing to captain Alastair Cook, saying not even legendary skipper Mike Brearley could have turned around a failing team.

But perhaps best of all is this eighties power ballad composed in honour of Swann.

He has earned it. When will we next see an England spinner who can win tests and makes the game exciting?

In praise of Graeme Swann

I love spin bowling. When I was a teenager I used to catch the coach to Northampton to watch Bishen Bedi and pretend that I understood the way he thought batsmen out.

Because a large part of the spin bowler's art consists in getting into the batsman's mind. I remember Graeme Swann at Lord's last summer: in the Australian second innings he turned a ball square in his first over and terrified the batsmen so much that he took two wickets with dead straight deliveries shortly afterwards.

Which brings us to Swann's retirement.

To deal first with the timing of it, if Swann feels he is no longer fit enough to bowl effectively throughout a five-day test match then he is right to say so. In an earlier age he would have had to stay on for the good of the team, but in the age of jet travel and development squads there is no reason for him to do so. Any modern rugby fan will know that a play who insists on staying on when he is injured is a liability not a hero

So let us praise Graeme Swann not bury him.

In last night's Six of the Best I linked to a good tribute to him in Nouse, the York student paper. And there is a brilliant one the Guardian today by Vic Marks:

This is a far from the ideal way to go but his sudden exit should not disguise a brilliant and unexpected England career. Remember he toured South Africa in 1999 as a bumptious 20 year old; he succeeded only in getting up many noses and was then ostracised for almost a decade. By 2008 he knew his trade yet no one anticipated that he would make such an impact. Conventional finger spinners were as out of fashion as hula hoops. They provided insufficient mystery for modern batsmen with their mighty cudgels. 

Swann soon demonstrated that this theory required modification for several reasons: he spun the ball more than most finger-spinners; he was braver than most, too, since he would bowl a more attacking line to right-handers.

Not only was Swann the best England spinner since Derek Underwood, he was also a great slip catcher and a useful batsman who scored runs quickly if the opposition did not get him early on.

More than that, he was the heart of the team and did much to make what could be rather a dour outfit more likeable.

As Vic Marks says:

Off the field he was generally a delight. In the press room there was always a tinge of relief when it was announced that Swann was on his way. He shunned the usual banalities, could rarely resist that one-liner and generally provided good copy, though nothing quite so sensational as his revelation of retirement in this weekend's Sun on Sunday. 

England will be a duller, weaker side without him.

Soon, no doubt, we shall see Swann as a commentator on cricket and quite possibly a media personality more widely. But before we do, let us celebrate his achievement as a test cricketer:

Despite the suddenness of his retirement ... his legacy is secure. Only Derek Underwood among the spinners took more wickets for England. Along the way Swann surpassed Laker, Lock, Titmus, Emburey, Edmonds and Illingworth. He would have settled for that at the beginning of December 2008 when, in his 30th year, he had yet to play a Test.

Six of the Best 407

"You could say capitalism is a means to an end, the end being lifting humanity out of poverty in order to enable it to lead the good life. That’s the essential point. The idea that we grow forever and ever seems to me a form of insanity because economic growth is, after all, only a means to wellbeing." Robert Skidelsky is interviewed by the British Politics and Policy at LSE Blog.

Mark Thompson offers an article template for any politico who has been outraged by anything - think The Molesworth Self-Adjusting Thank You Letter.

Caught by the River remembers the forgotten genius of Ian Nairn.

"A great many of his photos depict holidaymakers and day-trippers determinedly eating in the most unlikely or unpromising circumstances." That's How the Light Gets In reviews "Only in England" - the Science Museum's exhibition of the photographs of Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr.

My Tonight from Shrewsbury has an appreciation of the town's Castle Gates Library.

"A player like Graeme Swann comes about once in a lifetime and we should be grateful we were the generation of fans who got to experience his career." Beth Jakubowski, writing for the University of York student newspaper Nouse, pays tribute to the England spinner who announced his retirements