Sometimes other people do the rants you wish you'd done yourself. Andy Bull disintegrating in THe Guardian's over-by-over coverage of the debacle that is the Galle Test Match is a fine example...

33rd over: England 102-1 (Cook 53 Bell 17) No, Ian Forth, that is not my problem ta. My problem is that it's 6.18 in the morning and I've been up for three hours already, my problem is that I've had three-and-half-hours of sleep, my problem is that I should have stayed out even later having Merry Christmas frolics but I had to go home to come here, my problem is that I spend my afternoons sitting staring into the middle distance of the wallpaper in my flat because of general sleep deprivation my problem is that the only thing to eat in this building before 8am is tobacco smoke, and to do that I have to go down six floors and stand in a carpark, my problem is that this game is meaningless and largely rubbish, my problem is that Alastair Cook is a singularly boring batsman to watch, my problem is that the coffee here comes out of plastic sachets and tastes of rubber my problem here is that somebody is walking around my chair hoovering the crumbs off the floor from the free pies and booze my colleagues tucked into yesterday afternoon after I'd left, my problem is that apart from the cleaner who growls at me there is no one to talk to in this 1980s monstrosity of an open-plan office my problem is that someone has decided now is a good time to tests on the fire alarm, my problem has absolutely sod all to do with the fact that I haven't emigrated to Australia, my problem is that I'm not on holiday, my problem is that I'm not in bed, my problem is that I haven't been fed, my problem is that I have to sit here listening to Ian "lots of things in society are appalling, like grannies getting beaten and raped for a fiver" Botham, my problem is many many things but it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm not an Australian. Thanks. And my solution is that it has started raining and play has stopped. Hopefully for a long time. Prod me when it's tea. And while I'm on this topic my problem is that the lift is excessively verbose and feels compelled to tell me that I've decided to go up and that I should stand back from the doors, my problem is that this computer works erratically and the phone by its side doesn't work at all, my problem is that I'm not in Sri Lanka, my problem is that I no longer have Rob Smyth to sit next to so I can at least take consolation in looking at him and thinking 'at least I don't drink Relentless out of a brown paper bag' my problem is that the milk in the fridge is off, my problem is that you can't interview a sportsperson any more without plugging somebody else's crummy product, my problem is that no one likes County cricket anymore, my problem is that the rain has stopped and the covers are coming off and play will start at 7.03 my problem is that somebody at Sky actually thinks that the likes of Dominic Cork may have something more entertaining and insightful to say about play than any number of more intelligent and articulate journalists, my problem is that there isn't John Arlott any more, my problem is that there isn't Brian Johnson any more, my problem is Mark Ramprakash's tie knot, my problem is the skin on the top of the scrambled eggs when they've been sitting under a heat lamp for two hours in the canteen, my problem is that the New Zealand tour is likely to be equally anti-social and also utterly bobbins, my problem is the Premier League, my problem is 12 pages of sports news brought to you daily, my problem is comedy side-bars, my problem is Wayne Rooney's metatarsal, my problem is that no one wants to pick Ian Blackwell any more, my problem is the Rail network. My problem is that I don't have a pillow.

regular readers will know that just after the Yorkshire Dales, Northumbria comes right up there on my list of 'most beautiful places in the world'. So I was heartened by this campaign to return to the Northumbrian nation their most precious relic. By way of t'Grauniad. They don't quite say 'we recognise no king but a Percy king', but they obviously mean it.

Forty pilgrims braved the bitterly cold weather to walk eight miles in the footsteps of the monks who carried the body of St Cuthbert from Chester-le-Street to Durham. The march was organised by the Northumbrian Association as part of its campaign to have the Lindisfarne Gospels returned to the region from the British Library in London. The manuscripts were created by Eadfrith the monk on Lindisfarne and dedicated to St Cuthbert, Northumberland's patron saint, who died in 687. They were intended to stay in Durham cathedral with St Cuthbert's body, but were taken by Henry VIII in 1537 and have been kept at the British Library since the nineteenth century. Northumbrian Association treasurer John Danby told the Newcastle Journal: "The Gospels were written in the north-east and were meant to stay here. They're part of our history and heritage. "The British Library has claimed we wouldn't be able to look after the Gospels and have said scholars wouldn't be willing to travel to the north-east to visit them," he said. "But as one of our members pointed out, we invented the railway for them to travel here." The gospels were seen by 180,000 people while they were on loan in the north-east in 2001.

Sorry have I missed something in this story? Iranian guards take prisoner fifteen sailors and Royal Marines. The latter are usually as hard as nails. And the Brits go meekly, submissively, into Iranian custody. Why weren't they authorised to use force to protect themselves? Why didn't the ship they were from threaten to blow the revolutionary guard out of the water? Why aren't we threatening a bombing raid on southern Iran? I can't imagine the 'merkins letting their guys be taken in the same way, can you? Shit, what's the point of having nukes if we're not dropping them somewhere? I mean, we're renewing Trident, and its always best to use up your old stocks before buying in new (environmentally sound, one might say). Tehran's a shit-hole anyway, could do with a clear out. Fuck 'not inflaming a tense situation'. You take our guys prisoner, you pay the price. This has been Fox News, UK style. I say 'bring back Lord Palmerston'.

Got a couple of emails about 'lost' comments. Currently I'm getting around 200-250 spam comments every day. Anything held in the spam queue gets wiped without checking. If you comment with any links in the comment, you get treated as spam.

Sorry, but I love the wonderful brilliance of this. It might be on Fox and all, but it ranks with a 'Richard and Judy' fxed phone in for coolness, I mean, whose gonna be taken in? And do any of those people matter?

Has fundamentalist athiest Richard Dawkins finally taken one step too far? Suggesting the not-exactly-pretty woman at the centre of the BA cross scandal had 'one of the stupidest faces I'd ever seen' is one thing. It's all in a day's work for the arch-rationalist bully covering his ears and shouting 'la la la I can't hear you.'. But taking on Peter Kay, one of Britain's most-loved comedians? Not very bright at all really. Certainly, it won't be wise to come up to Greater Manchester any time soon. And what's the nature of his complaint? That people who happen to believe in God find comfort in it. Well, shucks, maybe that's the point? And maybe the search for that comfort is rather central to the human experience---it hasn't done badly for our culture in terms of art, music and all that stuff that makes life worth living after all. We can't all find our sense of purpose in a blinding lack of self-awareness, a surfeit of smugness and total intolerance, as does Dawkins. Funny, though, that he suggests his problem with religion is about 'truth'. Never mind the rather deep philosophical nature of the search for truth, Dawkins' connection to fact is somewhat lacking throughout 'The God Delusion'. The permanent scar in my wall from the book being bounced against it was caused by the book's lack of understanding of history, philosophy, ethics, or, well, anything very much. And, patently, what ordinary people tend to think and feel. Course, they're all 'stupid' as far as the dear Prof. is concerned. And why should stupid people be allowed to publish books? It might affect Dawkins' own future plans, of course.

My beloved and I visited Le Champignon Sauvage ( a Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch there--'when I met Gerald he was completely wild', 'wild? I was livid') this week. And very good it was too. I broke my incipient and collapsing vegetarianism by eating duck hearts. And very nice they were as well. It's the sort of place which allows you to enjoy yourself. Laugh, have fun. We had fun by writing our new Edinburgh show. 'Major moments of world history through the medium of mime'. We got Diana's death, the Kennedy assassination (Mrs W. doing a particularly good impression of the magic bullet I thought), the Vietnam War, Anne Frank (though that required some vocalisation, 'fuck this, not another diary...'). Any other ideas?

And about time too. Next step, the polar bears eat the President of merka

One of my beloved brothers has started bloggin and ranting over here. Nice stuff, like a mini-uk boingboing at the mo. Course he's very late into the blogoshire, but I'm sure he'll grace it rather more than I do at the moment. I'm awaiting the flippant throwaways on xianity to spark off a family war... A few other ranters have added me to their blogrolls (which is very flattering, considering how little I post), and can now be found over in the blogroll. Special mention to the wonderful Dr. Rant team, who are taking apart the changes in the NHS with bewildering speed (they need that Gerry Robinson bloke).

One of the issues in getting older is that as time spins faster and faster you realise that you've left longer and longer between visiting/seeing/speaking to/touching base with long term friends. Added to which, I'm not really that good at keeping in contact with people (mardy sod was a term invented for me). The beginning of February always reminds me of this because its the birthday of so many of them. So, apart from Mrs W., with whom I had a happy few days, there's Jo and Dave, whom I've known for almost two decades now, and are beloved of my heart, and then Sean who I barely see, but who saw me through many bad times, and, of course, to my best 'Friend', Mr. Friend himself, still floaty and in love, who I miss rather a lot. Happy birthday y'all.