Kmflett's Blog

Broadcasting the Ashes in the UK: the post-Sky terrain

It could be argued that its currently a golden age of digital cricket broadcasting across the globe.

There is a lot of cricket being played and quite a bit of it can be found, mostly on TNT Discovery, sometimes on Sky and occasionally elsewhere.

The coverage of the Ashes series just started provides a focus. TNT Discovery (actually Warners) have the UK TV rights. Their coverage is fronted up by Alastair Cook and Steven Finn and I think I heard Ebony Rainford Brent at some point. They are all Test Match Special people in the main but all of them have done previous cricket with TNT.

Previously the model was to take a feed for whichever domestic broadcaster was covering the game and have them in a studio somewhere (in Europe, wherever Warners had space). Now Cook et al are in situ but no studio.

I doubt Warners are that interested in cricket (or the audiences/advertising pull). Most of their cricket contracts were inherited from BT Sport. They’re covering the Ashes because no one else bid. Sky noted that Christmas darts at Ally Pally was their priority. One presumes again bigger audiences.

In fact South Africa aside Sky’s main cricket coverage now are England’s domestic games. One might speculate that the contract gives Sky some influence in the circles of power and perhaps helps somehow with their main priority-football. The reality is however that while Sky was once owned by the Murdochs who are cricket fans, the current US owners Comcast probably are not.

Meanwhile the BBC radio coverage on Test Match Special is unparalleled still and the BBC website has got rights to an Ashes highlights package.

Back to day one. The Telegraph thought the TNT coverage of the Ashes was rubbish. The Guardian thought it was ok

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/nov/21/alastair-cook-becky-ives-make-best-tnt-sports-shonky-ashes-production-cricket?CMP=share_btn_url

Monday 1^st December, 5.30pm, Vassilis Fouskas, Cyprus 1974. Anatomy of an invasion, Room 304, Institute of Historical Research. To Book Cyprus 1974. Anatomy of an invasion | Institute of Historical Research

All seminars are free. Please book at the link as space is limited.

Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, Malet St, London, WC1

Conventional wisdom and ideologies hold that responsibility for the partition of the Republic of Cyprus in the wake of Turkey’s multiple advances on the island in summer 1974 rests on domestic ethnic and religious tensions between the Turks and the Greeks. This book, drawing on a wealth of archival material, shows that this is not the case at all. As the detailed report of the United Nations mediator, Galo Plaza, had shown in 1965, the Turks and the Greeks living on the island could easily have co-existed if left alone to determine their future. This did not happen. The partition of the island had been inscribed in NATO’s policy since the 1950s, rewarding the strongest component of NATO’s southern flank, Turkey, at the expense of Greece, the weaker component. The volume details the role of CIA agents in Greece and the machinations of the Greek junta of Dimitrios Ioannides to overthrow the charismatic leader of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios, who had been fighting for an independent and non-aligned Cyprus. It also explains how the partition of Cyprus in 1974 has opened up prospects for the partition of the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey, with Greece’s eastern Aegean islands becoming ‘NATO lands’ in the service of the war against Russia.

Nathan Gill who was a UKIP and then Brexit Party MEP was briefly the leader of the Reform Ltd in Wales in 2021. He then stood down and has not been replaced. Reform will go into the 2026 Senedd Elections without a leader in Wales it seems.

On Friday Gill who had pleaded guilty to taking bribes from an Ukrainian pro-Russian politician while an MEP (The politician was sanctioned as a Russian agent by the US in 2022) was sentenced to ten and half years in prison at the Old Bailey

Given the perpetual talk of Farage being pro Putin one might think this story would be front page news. The BBC news site and the Guardian have led with the story correctly labelling Gill as an ex-Reform UK leader.

By Friday evening the story had disappeared off the front of the BBC new site. The print editions of the Guardian and the Mirror led with the story and none of the other front pages mentioned it at all….

Farage who was a UKIP MEP with Gill has previously claimed that the Gill who took bribes was not the politician he knew. Given that reports indicate that Farage and Gill’s offices at the European Parliament were adjacent one wonders if it was simply that Farage was rarely there that led to his lack of knowledge about what his colleague was up to.

Guardian report

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/21/nathan-gill-former-reform-uk-wales-leader-jailed-bribes-pro-russia-statements-mep?CMP=share_btn_url

Times Editorial, 21st November 2025 ‘any suggestion that this self-styled jester of the British political scene could return as saviour of the Conservative Party is laid to rest’

Beard Liberation Front

media release                                                  21st November

Contact keith flett                                            07803 167266

TEN BEARDS THAT HAVE INFLUENCED THE ASHES

‘I feel facial hair brings the best out of the players’ Merv Hughes March 2013

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has listed ten players whose beards have had a significant influence on Ashes contests as the 2025 Ashes series gets underway at Perth.

They range from the classic of WG Grace to the functional beard of Greg Chappell to greats like Ian Botham and Freddie Flintoff.

Not all of the players listed have full time beards, it is a question of deploying facial hair at precisely the right moment. Some are better known for moustaches but as with David Boon, Frederick Spofforth and Merv Hughes the line is sometimes crossed between a moustache and more significant facial hair

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said Merv Hughes was right. Facial hair adds gravitas to a players performance and the most hirsute side could have the edge in the 2025/6 Ashes contest

Ten Ashes beards

David Boon

Ian Botham

Mike Brearley

Greg Chappell

Freddie Flintoff

WG Grace

Merv Hughes

Moeen Ali

Ben Stokes

Frederick Spofforth

The BLF will Award the WG Grace Beard of the Ashes trophy to the most hirsute side at the end of the Fifth Test

Ahead of Rachel Reeves Budget next week, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and a man in a suit (believed to be the Shadow Chancellor) met with Wetherspoons boss Sir Tim Martin at the Metropolitan Bar, Baker St.

In my view there is a good deal that Wetherspoons does right- its welcoming to all, even Tory politicians, and quite a bit it does badly (it doesnt recognise a union)). Sir Tim’s political instincts are much less well honed than his business brain however. He has been pictured with Boris Johnson and of course Farage.

The irony is that of all the above Starmer is the actual pub goer. Before he descended to Downing St he was a regular at the Good Beer Guide listed Pineapple pub in Kentish Town.

Its certainly true that Rachel Reeves could and should do things primarily on tax and business rates to help struggling pub businesses, although tbh based on recent results Spoons is not struggling. However surely Sir Tim has noticed that Ms Badenoch will have no impact on this and he really needs to be lobbying the actual Government.

As soon as this pub closes the revolution starts is a song by the late Alex Glasgow btw. It was not written with Sir Tim in mind

Jake Weatherald is only the second Australian over 30 to open the batting for his team on debut, as he will do in Perth, in 50 years. Is this a significant or meaningless statistic? We will start to find out over the next few days. The alternative, the genuinely youthful Sam Konstas, has had a poor early season in Australia. He is 20 years old so his time may yet come.

The third Thursday in November is Beaujolais Nouveau when bottles are of the young wine are released. There was an invented tradition for people to be the first to get bottles of the wine back to the UK together with a lot of publicity.

Those times have largely gone but the invented tradition is now being reinvented. The Times (20th November) reports. Thanks to climate change and warmer summers wine makers in Bordeaux are struggling but Beaujolais which is produced further north is less impacted. Industrial yeasts that gave Beaujolais a banana taste have largely been ditched by a new generation of wine producers. Far from being drunk young the wine can now be laid down or cellared, with the prospect of a Beaujolais Vintage.

A marketing opportunity certainly but not one for November 20th

Below is a Guardian Fletter from Tuesday 10th March 2020.

I was in central London that week, working. Covid was already widespread in the Capital although that did not become clear until much later.

That said I did in that week cancel a face to face meeting of London union reps I was due to chair and a seminar at the Institute of Historical Research set for March 16th 2020. That was held via the then innovative Zoom in autumn 2020

The PM Boris Johnson was delaying a lockdown or indeed anything in the way of restrictions. Judging from the Fletter the theory at this point was that COVID was spread by contact rather than airborne. Hence no masks but no handshakes either.

Little did I or we know what was to very shortly follow.

I left London on Monday March 16th 2020 (for Cardiff with my now sadly late partner Megan) and did not return until July 2020. A world we have thankfully lost, for the moment, but remembering all those who died or ended up with Long COVID.

Also remembering the omnishambles of Johnson & Cummings

With handshakes off the agenda due to the coronavirus outbreak, I prefer the traditional form of greeting – the clenched-fist salute. In the unlikely event of encountering Boris Johnson in the wild, a two-finger salute is substituted.
Keith Flett
Tottenham, London