Musing The Week's Media

Trenchant opinion

There has been no shortage of Fleet Street moralising over Andrew Flintoff's 'alarm clock issue':

The Sun: 'Booze a silly boy?'; Daily Mail: 'Why does England's one-time talisman think he is so special?'; Daily Mirror: 'Last orders for Flintoff' and so on.

It marks a watershed - until now Freddie could do no wrong, and there was one cliché in particular that journalists used to enjoy attaching to the great hero.

Mark Nicholas, for example, in the Daily Telegraph. "First out of the trenches and last back, there is a danger of seeing Flintoff as irreplaceable."

Or Paul Weaver, The Guardian: "Andrew Flintoff does not do phoney wars very well. He is much more convincing when there is cordite in his nostrils and he is jumping out of the trenches with a fixed bayonet in his hands."

While we're on the subject

To be fair to Nicholas, Weaver and others, it is obvious that Flintoff is not the same player or man as five years ago.

Writes Michael Henderson in the Daily Telegraph: "The most depressing sentence of the year so far was uttered by Flintoff to Piers Morgan during the Barbados Test: "Morgan - you, me, Garry Sobers's box, now". That is the kind of thing a celebrity says, not a cricketer."

'Celebrity'? Another c word occurs to us.

Heff & Puff

As Media Column regulars will know, Daily Telegraph political commentator Simon Heffer intermittently turns his attention to cricket - usually when short of something to say on how British society has crumbled since 1914. On each occasion that he does so, Heffer seems to know less about the game than the time before and this week is no different.

Our highlight of this week's lamentable rant 'The Cricket I Grew Up Watching Has Ended' is a pride in not being "unduly highminded". It follows straight on from complaining that people these days lack the "moral fibre" for Test cricket.

Voice of (t)reason

"These lads aren't just doing it for Queen and Country." - Charles Colville commentates on Sky Sports covering the Lions....as a picture of Eoin Morgan, born in that royalist stronghold of Dublin, fills the screen.

Rumour of the Week

"England cricketer Andrew Flintoff is to guest edit a special Ashes edition of free weekly magazine Sport featuring specially commissioned pieces on darts, motorbikes and Base jumping, to coincide with the start of the first Test against Australia next Wednesday." - Guardian Media.

Very wise to enter a profession any fool can do tired and emotional as a newt.

Non-cricket Quote of the Week

"We repeat our top story this hour: news reports indicate that Michael Jackson has had a heart attack....and now the showbiz website TMZ.com has gone one better and announced that the singer has died." - In an insane media sh*tstorm, Richard Bacon goes one better than his many rivals on 5Live.

See also: 'Madonna "can't stop crying"' - BBC News breaking news ticker....."It will take us all some time to come to terms with the news." - some moron on BRMB radio....."Beyonce there....one of the first artists to express her sadness following the death of Michael Jackson." - some moron on FM104 radio.

Best