Excellent article. newyorker.com/culture/critic…

God I love the french

What to do when hurricanes leave you without power? Finish Quantum of Menace by Vaseem Khan of course. Witty, vibrant, and often profound. A very worthy new entrant into the Bond canon.

Australia taking the real lessons from bazball. If in doubt, play golf.

Extremely sporting of Zak Crawley to let England play the test with 10 men in solidarity with Usman Khawaja not being able to open yesterday.

An aging, injury-riddled Australia. If there was ever a time to just occupy the crease, put a ton of overs in Starc’s legs, make Lyon bowl through whatever niggle he’s got. England not only lost the game, but missed a huge opportunity to weaken Australia for the series. Brainless

Actually quite like the Will Jacks pick. The dogmatic choice would have been to double down on the Bashir experiment. Can we do Crawley next please.

I'm a late convert to test cricket but now absolutely love it. I think it's one of the very few things in life comparable to a novel - with different acts, a specific setting, character arcs that rise and fall, the beginning may end up being nothing like the end #Ashes2025

Rooooooooooooooot. Well worth a very early alarm.

The general rule is that if Crawley scores runs, you know the track is flat. England’s first innings total was overrated.

Once it’s been accused and admitted that someone “intentionally” tried to blind an opponent, how do you then ever let him share a field with other athletes again, let alone in as short a period as a few months that involve no meaningful matches?

The words of a coach after a severance payout rather than one interested in learning and adapting.

Lyon injured. Target down to 150. Just soften the ball a bit before attacking again. Brainless cricket.

Darts players with an abnormally large amount of ill-advised interviews this year. From Ricky Evans’ gravy rant to Charlie Manby whinging about his girlfriend’s job and Littler looking absolutely rattled while sarcastically thanking fans for paying his prize money.

Genuinely might be one of the stupidest cricket shots ever played.

Are England going to lose by an innings here or am I jaded and sceptical having watched too many ashes down under horror movies in the past.

How can the management watch this England team and conclude that more practice in every discipline of the game wouldn’t help them individually and collectively.

I am forever thankful for brilliant books and the people who write them. Here are some of my favourite reads of 2025 featuring Annie Garthwaite, Janice Hallett, amor towles among others. edwardferrariwillis.com/post/my-favour…