Vettel leads the way into the first Grand Prix, Chelsea on top of the Hammers and England uninspired at Murrayfield

WASN'T going to blog today. I'm in the beautiful Latimer Place Hotel. It's only about five miles from my home, but you forget how beautiful your surroundings are sometimes. It's an historic manor house, used to be owned by Lord Chesham.
In the middle of Latimer village there's a Boer War memorial to the locals killed at places like Paardeburg and Diamond Hill - one Lord Chesham died near Pretoria aged 21. The local church has tributes to him plastered all over the graveyard and the walls. Not much mention of the ordinary folk. Just his Lordship and a few of his nurses.
The place was run by the army during the war. They pretended it was a supply depot, but the beautiful old house was actually an interrogation centre... apparently they used to torture German and Italian officers here, 20 miles from London. This is where they found out about the V2 missile which threatened to turn things Hitler's way in 1944. No sign of any ghosts last night, but it's strange to think what used to happen within these ancient walls.
Now it's a beautiful hotel with rolling grasslands down to the River Chess, filled to the brim with trout. Beautiful. We're pictured above in front of "Neptune Falls", a weir with steps built-in to help the trout climb against the flow.
So why am I blogging? Because Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel sneaked in ahead of the two Ferraris to take the first pole position of the Grand Prix season in Bahrain, leaving the all-British McLaren's of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button in his wake? Michael Schumacher starts from seventh, by the way.
Because Didier Drogba scored two more to help Chelsea see off West Ham 4-1?
Nope. Sorry. It's because of England's peformance against Scotland at Murrayfield. Earlier we saw Ireland surge past Wales at Croke Park to keep the Six Nations championship alive with a superb display of running rugby.
But to deny France, who play lowly Italy tomorrow, Martin Johnson's England had to keep winning. And upset the French in their final encounter.
It ain't going to happen. England are dreadful. Their 15-15 draw against an uninspired Scotland was typical of life in the Johnson era. No imagination, no flair, no energy. Just a big bloody boot. Though the disgraceful Scots booed Johnny Wilkinson in mid-penalty and cheered when he went off injured in the second half after scoring all of England's 12 points, nothing can disguise the inept nature of Johnson's leadership.
A World Cup-winning captain he may have been, but he never coached at club level and was fast-tracked into the England job when Brian Ashton was deemed insufficient despite getting England to a World Cup final in 2007.
Poor old Toby Flood ended up having to kick once Wilko had been nobbled. He missed a 58th minute penalty which would have put England 15-12 up. In the end he had to wait for another awfully scrappy surge which fell apart once the backs had messed it up. A far closer penalty saw Flood make give England the three point advantage.
With 12 minutes to go Dan Parks, born in Hornsby (that's in Australia, not Scotland), hit a post with a penalty then got a second chance, closer in, to level the scores and take his tally to 15 out of 15.
Then, with four minutes to play, Flood again. From 48 metres. He fell a yard short. Agony. A late drop goal attempt... and again Flood failed. But a game like this, full of aimless kicking and poor handling, didn't deserve a winner.
There's no question England were the better side. They certainly tried to play a bit when Wilko went off. But as the whistle went for an appalling 15-15 draw without a try in sight, the pens were being sharpened. MARTIN JOHNSON MUST GO will be written in bloody bold tomorrow.

Vettel leads the way into the first Grand Prix, Chelsea on top of the Hammers and England uninspired at Murrayfield

WASN'T going to blog today. I'm in the beautiful Latimer Place Hotel. It's only about five miles from my home, but you forget how beautiful your surroundings are sometimes. It's an historic manor house, used to be owned by Lord Chesham.
In the middle of Latimer village there's a Boer War memorial to the locals killed at places like Paardeburg and Diamond Hill - one Lord Chesham died near Pretoria aged 21. The local church has tributes to him plastered all over the graveyard and the walls. Not much mention of the ordinary folk. Just his Lordship and a few of his nurses.
The place was run by the army during the war. They pretended it was a supply depot, but the beautiful old house was actually an interrogation centre... apparently they used to torture German and Italian officers here, 20 miles from London. This is where they found out about the V2 missile which threatened to turn things Hitler's way in 1944. No sign of any ghosts last night, but it's strange to think what used to happen within these ancient walls.
Now it's a beautiful hotel with rolling grasslands down to the River Chess, filled to the brim with trout. Beautiful. We're pictured above in front of "Neptune Falls", a weir with steps built-in to help the trout climb against the flow.
So why am I blogging? Because Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel sneaked in ahead of the two Ferraris to take the first pole position of the Grand Prix season in Bahrain, leaving the all-British McLaren's of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button in his wake? Michael Schumacher starts from seventh, by the way.
Because Didier Drogba scored two more to help Chelsea see off West Ham 4-1?
Nope. Sorry. It's because of England's peformance against Scotland at Murrayfield. Earlier we saw Ireland surge past Wales at Croke Park to keep the Six Nations championship alive with a superb display of running rugby.
But to deny France, who play lowly Italy tomorrow, Martin Johnson's England had to keep winning. And upset the French in their final encounter.
It ain't going to happen. England are dreadful. Their 15-15 draw against an uninspired Scotland was typical of life in the Johnson era. No imagination, no flair, no energy. Just a big bloody boot. Though the disgraceful Scots booed Johnny Wilkinson in mid-penalty and cheered when he went off injured in the second half after scoring all of England's 12 points, nothing can disguise the inept nature of Johnson's leadership.
A World Cup-winning captain he may have been, but he never coached at club level and was fast-tracked into the England job when Brian Ashton was deemed insufficient despite getting England to a World Cup final in 2007.
Poor old Toby Flood ended up having to kick once Wilko had been nobbled. He missed a 58th minute penalty which would have put England 15-12 up. In the end he had to wait for another awfully scrappy surge which fell apart once the backs had messed it up. A far closer penalty saw Flood make give England the three point advantage.
With 12 minutes to go Dan Parks, born in Hornsby (that's in Australia, not Scotland), hit a post with a penalty then got a second chance, closer in, to level the scores and take his tally to 15 out of 15.
Then, with four minutes to play, Flood again. From 48 metres. He fell a yard short. Agony. A late drop goal attempt... and again Flood failed. But a game like this, full of aimless kicking and poor handling, didn't deserve a winner.
There's no question England were the better side. They certainly tried to play a bit when Wilko went off. But as the whistle went for an appalling 15-15 draw without a try in sight, the pens were being sharpened. MARTIN JOHNSON MUST GO will be written in bloody bold tomorrow.

When sunny Centurion pales into insignificance. Come on Arsenal!

SOMETIMES the ebb and flow of Test cricket can get to you. Just as England wilted today on day four of the first Test at sun-soaked Centurion, so this journalist finally lost heart.

I went back to my dad's to recuperate when Hashim Amla passed the 200-ball mark. The bearded one, unlikely to be sponsored by Gillette any time soon, was simply too good for England's attack and took the game beyond us with a magnificent century.

Aided by AB De Villiers and Mark Boucher, a torrid day ended with Morne Morkel slapping Stuart Broad for 14 runs off an over. Then the declaration and a grinning Graeme Smith saw Morkel produce an unplayable ball which Andrew Strauss had to touch to Boucher and England, at 11-1, remain 353 runs from victory going into the final day.

The good news? It's absolutely hissing down out there. After four sizzling days, the tropical rains have returned. England may yet escape with a soggy draw.

Meanwhile, this being South Africa, I was treated to three successive games of live football. First Liverpool went down 2-0 at Portsmouth - my dad's team - then Manchester United, playing without a defence (they're all injured, an argumentative Sir Alex Ferguson ended up with Michael Carrick and Darren Fletcher at centre-back) were thrashed 3-0 and now Arsenal are attempting to reverse the string of giants killings against Hull.

And word reaches me via my son's text that Manchester City's Mark Hughes, fresh from a rousing 4-3 win over Sunderland, is about to be replaced by Italian Roberto Mancini. Criminal. Hughes is one of Britain's great managers. But give the foreign billionaires ownership of our clubs and this is what happens. We'll end up like South Africa, with a string of international bosses who can barely speak the language!

Sometimes the cut-and-thrust of Premier League football and the freezing pre-Christmas jousting outweights the lure of sun-drenched cricket. Especially when England are losing their grip on a Test. This is one of those days.