Richard Williams

No cricket like five-day Test cricket, and no Test cricket like a proper summer-long five-match series. Siraj blocks Bashir's offbreak and sees the ball spin gently back to dislodge a single bail. What a finish today to a great Third Test at Lord's.

Fabulous letter from the great Deborah Moggach in today’s Times.

That was grand tour racing at its best on the Mont Ventoux today. Stories within stories. Stories everywhere. Hours of suspense. And a home win on the Giant of Provence.

Is it just me, or are this year’s Tour de France crowds bigger than ever? Wonderful to see such enthusiasm for the world’s greatest annual sporting event.

Just time to read this excellent piece by ⁦@willfoth⁩ before the riders of the 2025 Tour de France head up the pitiless slopes of the Mont Ventoux this afternoon… theguardian.com/sport/2025/jul…

Maybe a redemptive win for ⁦@alafpolak1⁩ next Sunday in Paris, with a solo break on the climb to Sacré-Coeur? One can dream.

A Blue Moment piece on the wonderful music heard during Olie Brice's album launch at the Vortex last night: thebluemoment.com/2025/07/19/oli…

Fascinating from Scottie Scheffler on the meaning (or lack of it) of success in sport. How often do you hear something like this? You could say it's self-indulgent, but I don't think so.

You only have to go back a couple of hundred years and parents - reasonably and realistically - expected half their children to die before reaching adulthood. You throw away the benefits of modern medicine - including vaccines - and you go back to that era. Children are…

The Blue Moment on a spread from an October 1944 copy of Life magazine that catches the audience at New York's night club enjoying their wartime prosperity: thebluemoment.com/2025/07/15/caf…

Quite a Bastille Day on the Tour de France. A veteran from Bury wins the stage and a lad from a Staffordshire village (with Irish nationality) takes the yellow jersey.

A thoughtful and sensible piece on the state of the nation. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

RIP Sam Abt, 91, who wrote so beautifully about the Tour de France in the heyday of the much-missed International Herald Tribune. nytimes.com/2025/07/13/spo…

Nice to hear the Wimbledon Centre Court acknowledging the immortal Arthur Ashe 50 years after his magnificently strategised demolition of Jimmy Connors. I remember the joy of watching it live on TV. There’s no single sporting contest I would rather have seen in person.

Some Blue Moment thoughts on the Quadrophenia ballet, at Sadler's Wells until Sunday: thebluemoment.com/2025/07/11/qua…

Sad to be losing Gibbs-White and probably Elanga too, but — oh boy — did they give us something to cheer at the City Ground. And our club provided the setting for their talents. All best to them. #NFFC

A new NY Times obituary of organist Dave "Baby" Cortez, whose instrumental hit "Rinky Dink" was a coeval of "Green Onions" in 1962, and who seems to have died, unnoticed, a couple of years ago: nytimes.com/2025/07/10/art…

Ben Healy’s brave solo break deservedly captured a particularly fine stage of the Tour de France today, on the undulating roads of a sunbaked Normandy, hugely enhanced by commentary from the ⁦@itvcycling⁩ gang — Gary, Ned, David, Daniel and the rest. How we’ll miss them.

Twenty years ago, it was Bernie Ecclestone who guided the ambitious young Christian Horner towards Dietrich Mateschitz and the new Red Bull team. Where Horner turns up next may say something about Ecclestone’s continuing influence within F1.