Great Expectations

Charles Dickens is more commonly associated with Christmas and the wonderful characters of Pickwick Papers. However, we do our great novelist a dis-service if we do not recognise he's a cheery tale of Old England for all seasons. One of the Pickwick stories does, I believe, feature a cricket match, but hardly one of test match standards. Perhaps our cricketophile readers would be able to tell me which book it comes from?

The "phut" of rubber on catgut (OK, it's nylon these days but who's checking!) will be the satisfying summer sound dominating TV screens for the next two weeks as Britain once again becomes a nation of armchair or deckchair tennis fans. Once again, poor old Tim Henman- and at 30 he is starting to seem old by the standards of the youthful professional game- carries the expectations of the nation on his shoulders of our first Wimbledon Men's win for goodness knows how long. Can he do it? Who knows.

Well I expect he does, at least the Doctor of that ilk would. Think what a bookie's nightmare would be the last surviving Time Lord if he happened to pop into a Cardiff branch of Ladbroke's next time he's passing through in the Tardis. He'd have it made, knowing in advance the result of every single sporting competition for the next 200 millennia plus. With all that dosh, he might even be able to upgrade to the GL version of the Tardis, you know the one, with its plush leather interiors and built in policeman. Fat chance the law would have against the Daleks though, and even the venerable Doctor himself nearly met his match last night in the thoroughly satisfying "season finale" of the resurrected Dr Who.

The BBC had high hopes of this resurrected classic series, and they have not been disappointed. Last night saw the latest re-generation, and with the transformation of Christopher Ecclestone into David Tennant, somehow you could tell this wonderfully realised sci-fi saga was in a safe pair of hands. Do you think the Doc though might turn his sonic screwdriver to tightening up our Timbo's racket strings? Then, perhaps, he might actually stand a chance against the moving monsters of his opposition in the shape of Messrs Federer, Hewitt and others. The speed of their delivery, the lightning pace of their reactions and their phenomenal footwork seem determined to exterminate British hopes in the wonderful racket game we invented once again. But I hope I'm proved wrong...