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Plan to end the so called default retirement age is outlined in a consultation document to be published today

People will be encouraged to work longer under government plans to phase out the so-called default retirement age of 65 by October 2011.

Currently employers can make staff retire at 65 regardless of their circumstances, but ministers signalled this was set to change as people were living longer, healthier lives.

The proposal to phase out the default retirement age (DRA) is outlined in a consultation document, published today, which will run until October.

However, the government said bosses will still be able to operate a compulsory retirement age if they can "objectively justify it".

The move to phase out the DRA is one of a number of measures the government is taking to help and encourage people to work for longer against the backdrop of demographic change.

Other steps include reviewing when the state pension age should increase to 66 and re-establishing the link between earnings and the basic state pension.

The business department said the consultation also proposes to help employers by removing the administrative burden of statutory retirement procedures.

A department spokesperson said: "With the DRA removed there is no reason to keep employees' right to request working beyond retirement or for employers to give them a minimum of six months notice of retirement.

"Although the government is proposing to remove the DRA, it will still be possible for individual employers to operate a compulsory retirement age, provided that they can objectively justify it. Examples could include air traffic controllers and police officers."

The plans provoked a mixed reaction. Campaigners welcomed the decision, but employers warned the removal of a default retirement age could make workforce planning more difficult.

Chris Ball, chief executive of The Age and Employment Network, called it a "win/win outcome" for employers, but warned that today's move is only a first step.

"Many employers will need to adopt a totally new mindset," Ball said. "They will need to actively plan and assist workers to be able to go on contributing to the success of their organisations.

"This may mean adapting work practices and work places. It will certainly mean providing opportunities to train or retrain and to work more flexibly, and, crucially, actually recruiting people in their 50s and 60s where they may not have done so in the past."

Rachel Krys, campaign director of anti-ageism group the Employers Forum on Age (EFA), said the default retirement age, which was created in 2006, was a "dated and unfair system".

"Its removal is simply common sense," she said. "With rising life expectancies, and people staying fitter for longer, it is archaic to assume that someone's age is an indicator of the contribution they can make to the workplace.

"Employers have nothing to fear from this change. This is an outdated policy and the removal of forced retirement is an opportunity to put policies and processes in place which make the most of an age-diverse workforce."

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), which has campaigned for many years to remove the DRA, said the "breakthrough" was "greatly encouraging".

Dianah Worman, the CIPD's diversity adviser, said: "Our research has shown that many employees wish to work past retirement for differing reasons and many employers are already benefiting from allowing such flexibility."

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said the proposals will give employers little time to prepare and leave them with unresolved problems. John Cridland, CBI deputy director-general, said: "Scrapping the DRA will leave a vacuum and raise a large number of complex legal and employment questions, which the government has not yet addressed. Employers and staff will not know where they stand. There will need to be more than a code of practice to address these practical issues; we will need changes in the law to deal more effectively with difficult employment situations."

David Yeandle, the Engineering Employers Federation's head of employment policy, said: "Many manufacturers will be seriously concerned about this change in policy, which will make workforce planning more difficult.

"The proposed timetable also gives employers virtually little or no time to alter their policies and practices before such an important change in employment legislation is introduced.

"There is also a real danger that it could open a Pandora's box with the onus being placed on employers to prove whether older employees are capable of continuing in their current role. Inevitably, this could lead to employment tribunal cases from some older employees who have been dismissed rather than allowed to retire."

'An artifical construct'

As a founder member of the EFA, Nationwide building society has been pushing hard for the DRA to be removed. It has allowed employees to work past retirement up to the age of 70 since 2001, once it realised many of its customers preferred to discuss their financial arrangements with older people.

In 2005 it raised that limit to 75 subject to employees passing what its HR director, John Whitehouse, describes as a "gateway test".

"As long as people want to carry on working and there aren't any problems, we're happy to let them do that," he said. "Since then I can't think of any example of us saying to staff, sorry we don't want you to carry on."

Out of an approximate 15,500 employees, Nationwide has 285 over the age of 60 working in all areas of the business. Its oldest branch manager is 60, while its oldest employee is a 76-year-old lady who works part time in its Swindon call centre.

From an employer's perspective, Whitehouse said Nationwide does have to think about issues like succession and benefits in a different way, "but they are not insurmountable things. Arguably these are things companies should be doing anyway. This artifical construct that we all must stop working at 65 is a relic of past usage. It's the stuff of the 1950s."

Today, pensions minister Steve Webb admitted that people face a "hell of a shock" when they reach retirement because of their failure to save.

In an interview with the Independent, he admitted that the basic state pension of £97 a week is "not enough to live on", and confirmed that the government would raise the state retirement age to 66 earlier than planned. He said that around 7 million people are currently not saving enough to meet their retirement aspirations.

Dominique Cottrez, a nursing auxiliary who has admitted to killing her babies, appears in court

A mother-of-two who worked as a nursing auxiliary in the north-eastern French city of Douai has been charged with the murder of eight of her newborn babies, sources said, as police pushed forward with their investigations into France's apparently worst-ever infanticide.

Dominique Cottrez, a lifelong inhabitant of the nearby village of Villers-au-Tertre, appeared before a judge this morning along with her husband, Pierre-Marie Cottrez, a municipal councillor.

Eric Vaillant, the prosecutor of Douai, said he had requested Mr Cottrez be charged with the failure to report a crime and the concealment of a body.

Cottrez confessed to killing her babies before putting their corpses in plastic bags. She buried two of the newborns in the garden and hid the rest of them in the garage,Vaillant said.

"She explained that she didn't want any more children and that she didn't want to see a doctor to take contraceptives," Vaillant told a news conference.

"She was perfectly conscious of the fact that she was pregnant each time."

For the inhabitants of Villers-au-Tertre, the small village where the Cottrez couple have lived for decades, the discovery of the eight corpses has caused shock and disbelief. Ever since Tuesday, when the pair were arrested after police found the bodies of six babies in plastic bags in their house, neighbours have been struggling to understand how the family could have hidden such a secret.

"Pierre-Marie is a very nice guy. I am just overwhelmed and I'm finding it impossible to understand," said one villager, who did not want his name to be published.

"He's a mate of mine. We used to have a drink, talk about work ? He is very generous. He wears his heart on his sleeve," he said, adding: "I see no reason why he would have known anything about this."

The alleged murders came to light on Saturday, when the owners of a house that had been the property of Dominique Cottrez's parents, now deceased, stumbled upon the bones of two newborns in the garden.

The investigation led quickly to the couple's current home, half a mile away, where police found six other bodies. Even today, teams of investigators and forensic experts from Douai, Paris and Lille are combing the sites for other bodies.

Village mayor Patrick Mercier said a third house in which the couple had briefly lived was also being explored.

Speaking to local media, he described Pierre-Marie Cottrez as a third-term municipal councillor who was "respectable and respected".

He added: "On the pregnancies, no one had any idea of anything. The mother would go out rarely; she has significant weight problems. She's a pleasant person even if she was withdrawn."

Other villagers portrayed Dominique Cottrez as a "devoted" daughter who cared for her father until his death. She was "deserving", said one, and "a very good mother" who spent a lot of time with her two grownup daughters, Emeline and Virginie, and their two sons.

On her Facebook page, Mrs Cottrez states her employers as the Douai branch of the SSIAD, an association which provides home care for the elderly or disabled. An SSIAD official refused to speak to the Guardian when asked to confirm this.

Limit sought so some asylum seekers can apply for work only in industries with staff shortages

Home Office ministers are trying to thwart the impact of a supreme court ruling lifting a work ban on 45,000 asylum seekers by severely restricting the jobs they can apply for.

The immigration minister, Damian Green, wants to bar the asylum seekers from more than 28.5m jobs and restrict them to industries in which there are official staff shortages.

Home Office officials are investigating the possibility of telling asylum seekers they can apply only for vacancies among 400,000 skilled jobs in shortage occupations ? a tiny fraction of the jobs in the UK economy. Asylum seekers would have to be qualified maths teachers, chemical engineers, high-integrity pipe welders or even experienced orchestral musicians or ballet dancers to have any hope of being allowed to work. The conditions mirror the restrictions of the points-based immigration system which bans unskilled workers from outside of Europe from working in Britain.

This week's supreme court ruling said failed asylum seekers who made a second fresh claim for refugee status should be allowed to work if they had waited more than 12 months for a new Home Office decision.

The ruling is in line with an EU directive that lays down minimum standards for the reception of asylum seekers across Europe to ensure a dignified standard of living. The supreme court rejected the home secretary's argument that this group of asylum seekers should lose this protection because their initial application had been rejected.

Refugee welfare groups have been fighting for more than 10 years to lift the ban on asylum seekers being allowed to work in Britain while their applications are decided. This is the first time the courts have backed the principle.

Immigration barristers say the ruling will mean that tens of thousands of failed asylum seekers whose fresh applications are grinding their way through the system will be entitled to basic rights, including the right to work. The court said any problem with undeserving cases should be dealt with by resolving them promptly rather than by denying those involved their fundamental rights.

The Home Office says that up to 45,000 failed asylum seekers are likely to be affected by the ruling. Many of them are among the 450,000 "legacy cases", some dating back more than 10 years, which the Home Office is working through in a backlog exercise.

Green confirmed his intention to severely restrict the jobs open to asylum seekers who have waited more than a year for a decision.

He said: "I believe it is important to maintain a distinction between economic migration and asylum ? giving failed asylum seekers access to the labour market undermines this principle."

He claimed the ruling would have only a short-term effect as "the long delays in the asylum system will be resolved by the summer of next year when all the older asylum cases are concluded".

Jonathan Ellis, director of policy and development at the Refugee Council, said the Home Office's response to the ruling was "disappointing".

"The supreme court ruled that this group of asylum seekers has the right to work under EU law ? the government should not then limit this right down to a small number of asylum seekers who meet the requirements for national shortage occupations.

"The shortage occupation list is not designed for asylum seekers but rather economic migrants needing sponsorship to come to the UK. Asylum seekers who have waited so long for a decision should be allowed to work for local employers whenever their skills are needed."

Lib Dem leader says he was in favour of a faster programme of deficit reduction before the general election ? even though he did not publicly back the idea

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader and deputy prime minister, has admitted that he changed his mind about the timing of spending cuts prior to the general election, despite publicly telling the electorate weeks before the poll that early deep cuts would be "economic masochism".

In what was seen as the biggest policy reversal of the coalition negotiations, the Lib Dems abandoned their policy of maintaining the government's economic stimulus through this financial year and backed a tougher Tory plan instead.

Clegg cited calls with Mervyn King, the Bank of England governor, as critical to this decision to back the package of cuts announced by the coalition government after taking office.

In an Observer interview on 6 June, Clegg described his conversation with King on 15 May. "He couldn't have been more emphatic. He said, 'If you don't do this, then because of the deterioration of market conditions it will be even more painful to do it later.'"

But Clegg has now admitted that he had changed his views on the timing of cuts before the general election had even taken place.

The revelations are made in a BBC2 documentary Five Days that changed Britain, broadcast tonight, which outlines the dramatic five days following the inconclusive result of the 6 May general election and the frenzied negotiations over the formation of a new government.

Asked by BBC political editor, Nick Robinson, if he had changed his mind about cuts this year during the five days of negotiations, Clegg said: "I changed my mind earlier than that ... firstly remember between March and the actual general election ... a financial earthquake occurred in on our European doorstep."

Pressed on why he failed to convey this to the electorate prior to them casting their votes, Clegg said: "... to be fair we were all ... reacting to very, very fast-moving economic events."

The deputy premier's admission dovetails with comments made by King yesterday to the Treasury select committee, in which he told MPs that he gave no fresh information to Clegg in a call on 15 May that could have led to him to call for a faster deficit reduction programme than the one outlined by his party during the election campaign.

He said he spoke to Clegg at the request of the new government, five days after the Lib Dem leader announced he was forming a coalition government with David Cameron in which a faster programme of deficit reduction was agreed.

Tonight's programme also reveals details of the behind-the-scenes manoeuvres after the general election results were announced on Friday.

This includes Cameron's admission that he was resigned to carrying on as leader of the opposition just 24 hours before he walked into Downing Street.

He told his wife, Samantha, that he was "depressed" that he had not led the Conservatives to a general election victory.

Cameron tells the programme: "I remember going home I think on Monday evening and I think Sam and I had supper in the kitchen and I remember saying you know it's not going to happen, I'm going to be leader of the opposition and I remember saying I want to go on being leader of the opposition."

The programme also reveals how Gus O'Donnell, the head of the civil service, urged Cameron and Clegg to hurry up and form government to avoid a bad reaction from the markets.

O'Donnell tells the programme he advised Conservative and Liberal Democrat negotiators in their first meeting with the cabinet office that "the more comprehensive the agreement" between the two parties, the more it would reassure the markets.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats finally sealed the deal on 11 May ? four days after the election results ? and published an initial coalition document outlining the agreement on key areas of policy differences.

This included a referendum on switching the voting system to AV ? a key Lib Dem demand.

But tonight's programme suggests that Clegg may have bluffed Cameron into offering the Lib Dems a referendum on a change to the voting system as part of the coalition talks.

Rumours have frequently circulated in Tory circles that Clegg, in highly pressurised coalition talks after the election, managed to outmanoeuvre the Tory party leader by intimating he had been offered more by Labour in parallel post-election talks than was actually the case.

Cameron was asked by Robinson whether he misled his MPs by saying Labour would give the Lib Dems voting reform without a referendum. Cameron said no, because he was "absolutely certain" that the case.

Clegg is then asked whether it is inaccurate to say he told Cameron he could get the alternative vote without a referendum from Labour.

He said: "The perception, which I think was accurate, was discussions are out, and it might have been an offer that might had been made and might have been considered. In answer to your direct question ? was it ever formally made to me? ? no, it wasn't formally made to me."

Tonight's programme also reveals that Cameron had 45-minute chance encounter with Clegg before the election, which helped him to form a view of the man who would later become his deputy prime minister.

"We'd spoken, funnily enough I think by accident when the government opened the supreme court. I think because the prime minister, then Gordon Brown, and the Queen were both there they didn't really know what to do with the opposition politicians they left Nick and me alone in this room together for about 45 minutes. We didn't talk about ... hung parliaments or anything like that; we just talked about politics and things, and I think that helped, so I knew that he was a reasonable person ? in politics for the right reasons like me."

The programme will be broadcast tonight on BBC2 at 9pm.

John Radcliffe Hospital is told it may not resume heart surgery by independent review into deaths of four babies

Surgery at the smallest children's heart unit in England should remain "suspended until or unless the service can safely be expanded", an independent review into the deaths of four babies at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford has concluded.

The unit has been shut since February after the four children died within weeks of one another having been operated on by a junior consultant, Caner Salih.

He had been appointed to raise patient numbers at the unit, which was under threat of closure, but was asked to stop operating after blowing the whistle on practices within the unit.

The review panel, commissioned by the South Central Strategic Health Authority (SHA), has been examining all aspects of patient care at the unit. The department carried out around 100 operations a year and was one of the smallest units in the country.

It has examined the systems in place and asked whether "appropriate, proportionate, and timely actions were taken by the right members of staff whenever concerns were raised".

The report says there were two distinct groups of patients that had "more deaths than would have been expected from national mortality rates for the procedures carried out", and these could not be explained by chance.

First were the 15 cases operated on by the new surgeon, for which the rate of mortality was 4.8 times higher than that expected from national rates.

Second were complex procedures undertaken under the supervision of the senior cosultant, Professor Stephen Westaby, between 2000 and 2008, for which the rate of mortality was 5.3 times that expected from national rates.

Westaby and Salih were the only two paediatric cardiac surgeons at the time of the suspension. Salih left shortly afterwards, having been appointed as a consultant at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Trust in London.

Bill Kirkup, director of clinical standards at the SHA, said it would be unsafe to allow any further children's heart surgery to take place unless the unit is expanded. Although the report states there were "no errors of judgment that directly led to any of the deaths", there were problems in the "induction" and "mentoring" of Salih.

Westaby also comes in for criticism for his "somewhat idiosyncratic approach". He had booked a three-week holiday at the time his new junior surgeon arrived ? and expected him not to undertake any surgery.

"It should have been clear from the outset that the two surgeons had significant differences of outlook and personality, and neither surgeon expressed any enthusiasm for joint working," said the report.

The panel makes it clear that although "the results between 2000 and 2008 were almost within the bounds of expected variation", this was because of the staff's determination to make an "unsatisfactory situation work despite its inherent flaws".

It adds: "That they did so is a reflection of their efforts, but we do not believe that it is right to rely on this to deliver a safe service in future: the risks for patients and parents are too high".

Kayley Boleyn and Christopher Taylor inflicted more than 70 injuries on toddler Ryan Lovell-Hancox

A couple who murdered a toddler they were paid to look after were today jailed for life.

Kayley Boleyn, 19, and Christopher Taylor, 25, inflicted more than 70 injuries on three-year-old Ryan Lovell-Hancox. The boy lived with the couple at their flat in Bilston, West Midlands, for a month before he was taken to hospital in a coma after a brain haemorrhage.

They had been paid £40 a week by the boy's mother and Boleyn's cousin, 21-year-old Amy Hancox, who felt she could not look after the child because of mental health problems. But Boleyn "abused the trust" of Ryan's parents, who had no idea of their son's suffering.

Wolverhampton crown court heard Taylor and Boleynforced the youngster to live in squalor in the weeks before his death on Christmas Eve 2008, providing better care for two dogs. Violence towards Ryan was not borne from a "flash of temper", but was sustained and horrific.

Two days before Ryan's death, Hancox tried to batter down the door to Boleyn's home to see her son. But Boleyn, who like her boyfriend abused cannabis and alcohol, refused to let her in as Ryan's face and body was covered in bruising.

Mrs Justice Macur ordered Boleyn to serve at least 13 years in prison while Taylor was told his minimum term would be 15 years. "It's clear to me that you [Boleyn] and your co-defendant were incapable of looking after yourselves, let alone a child," she said.

"There were bruises to his skull, which had been inflicted by up to 10 individual blows. There were marks on his legs and grazes to his face. He had been grabbed forcibly around the jaw and slapped and punched.

"These were not in isolation. There were further assaults to his lower back and buttocks on which there was extensive bruising.

"It really was a case where the jury saw injuries from top to toe. He would have suffered emotionally and physically and he would have needed comfort but you mocked him."

The judge added: "You were unable to keep your own lives under control without smoking cannabis and alcohol and you took your petty grievances out on this boy because you regarded him as hyperactive and out of control."

It was disclosed during today's 45-minute hearing that Boleyn, who with Taylor was found guilty in March of murder and child cruelty, was known to social services. A social worker had attended her home on the day the toddler was taken to hospital.

Social workers were aware Boleyn had problems after she left school, aged 12, to care for her younger siblings.

Frances Oldham QC, for Boleyn, read out a probation officer's report to the court which said: "I believe Miss Boleyn is vulnerable and in need of assistance. She has very few supportive relationships in her life and as a result is very isolated."

Wolverhamton city council said it expected to publish the findings of its serious case review this autumn.

Ryan's mother and his father, John Lovell, 24, wept throughout the hearing. Hancox ran from the public gallery in tears as her victim impact statement was read out. In it she described her son as a "bubbly, intelligent boy who she loved with all her heart".

British prime minister says he has not caused offence in Pakistan and insists he is not accusing the Islamabad government of promoting terrorism

David Cameron today launched a strong defence of his attack on Islamabad in which he claimed that elements of the Pakistani state are responsible for exporting terrorism abroad.

Amid deep anger in Pakistan, the prime minister said he would always talk "frankly" to Britain's friends as he insisted he had caused no offence and had not blamed the Islamabad government for promoting terrorism.

Speaking in Delhi this morning on the second and final day of his visit to India, the prime minister said: "I don't think the British taxpayer wants me to go around the world saying what people want to hear."

Cameron dismissed fears that his comments risked overshadowing a visit next week to Chequers by the Pakistan president, Asif Ali Zardari.

"I don't think it's overshadowed anything," he said. "I think it's important to speak frankly and clearly about these issues. I have always done that in the past and will do so in the future."

The prime minister insisted that he had been talking about "people within Pakistan" who launch terrorist attacks abroad rather than its government.

A furious diplomatic row erupted between London and Islamabad last night after Cameron's comments yesterday, when he warned that Pakistan could no longer "look both ways" by tolerating terrorism while demanding respect as a democracy.

Angry responses followed from Pakistani officials in the UK and the foreign ministry in Islamabad. Writing for the Guardian's Comment is free site, Pakistan's high commissioner to Britain accused Cameron of damaging the prospects for regional peace and criticised him for believing allegations in the secret military logs of the Afghanistan conflict published earlier this week.

The leaked documents suggest that the ISI, one of Pakistan's two military intelligence agencies, was encouraging the Taliban as recently as last year.

Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Pakistan's high commissioner, wrote: "One would have wished that the prime minister would have considered Pakistan's enormous role in the war on terror and the sacrifices it has rendered since 9/11.

"There seems to be more reliance on information based on intelligence leaks which lack credibility of proof. A bilateral visit aimed at earning business could have been done without damaging the prospects of regional peace."

The prime minister initiated the row yesterday morning in a speech to Indian business leaders in Bangalore, when he spoke of his horror at the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai for which Delhi directly blamed the Pakistani authorities.

Cameron came close to endorsing that view when he said: "We cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country is allowed to look both ways and is able to promote the export of terror, whether to India or Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world.

"That is why this relationship is important. But it should be a relationship based on a very clear message: that it is not right to have any relationship with groups that are promoting terror. Democratic states that want to be part of the developed world cannot do that. The message to Pakistan from the US and from the UK is very clear on that point."

Pakistan took the rare step of issuing an official rebuttal. Abdul Basit, a spokesman for the Pakistani foreign ministry, told Radio 4's World at One: "There is no question of Pakistan looking the other way. I think the prime minister was referring to these reports, which are unverifiable and outdated. If we start drawing inferences from these self-serving reports, then obviously we are distracting ourselves."

Pakistani senator Khurshid Ahmad, vice-president of the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party, said: "I am deeply concerned. The basis on which this statement has been made is very fragile. The documents released are unreliable: 90% of them have been attributed to Afghan intelligence agencies, whose reports are totally unreliable and fabricated. On the basis of such a report, it is not acceptable to make the statement that has been made."

Britain has spoken in the past of the terror threat from Pakistan, though ministers have restricted themselves to criticising Pakistan for tolerating terror groups. But the prime minister's language came close to endorsing the Indian view that authorities in Pakistan have a hand in the terror.

Cameron named several terror groups which are, according to India, sponsored by Pakistan. "We ? like you ? are determined that groups like the Taliban, the Haqqani network or Lakshar-e-Taiba should not be allowed to launch attacks on Indian and British citizens in India or in Britain."

Downing Street insisted the prime minister was not accusing Pakistan's government of sponsoring terrorism. But a few minutes after his speech, Cameron made clear that official agencies in Pakistan were responsible for harbouring terrorists.

Asked on the Today programme whether Pakistan exports terrorism, Cameron said: "I choose my words very carefully. It is unacceptable for anything to happen within Pakistan that is about supporting terrorism elsewhere. It is well-documented that that has been the case in the past, and we have to make sure that the Pakistan authorities are not looking two ways. They must only look one way, and that is to a democratic and stable Pakistan."

The prime minister's words on Pakistan overshadowed the first day of a visit to India designed to herald a new special relationship. Downing Street says the trip is meant to show that Britain can treat India as a normal trading partner, with the security issues surrounding Delhi's troubled relations with Pakistan dealt with on a separate tack.

But the main business announcement ? a relaxation of licence rules to allow the export of civil nuclear technology and expertise to India ? had the potential to upset its nuclear neighbour. Pakistan and India have refused to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, prompting the last Labour government to refuse to co-operate with India on civil nuclear power. Ministers had feared there would be leakage to its military nuclear programme.

The US sanctioned the use of civil nuclear technology to India in 2008. Britain believes today's agreement is compatible with the NPT, which bans the sale of nuclear technology to nuclear powers that have not signed it.

Congested capital might not welcome special Games Lanes set aside for athletes, officials and 'marketing partners'

The nation's collective, unquestioning enthusiasm for London 2012 could be dampened, with the announcement today of the key traffic lanes that will only be accessible to Olympic traffic.

The so-called "Games Lanes", which will run along more than 60 miles of London's roads, will only be accessible to vehicles from the Olympic family ? which includes coaches carrying athletes and officials, but also "marketing partners" ? and are designed to enable swift and safe transport between accommodation and venues.

The lanes form part of the Olympic Route Network, announced today by the Olympic Delivery Authority ? the public body responsible for developing and building venues and infrastructure for the Games.

The ODA stresses that other recent games, including Beijing, Athens and Sydney have all used Games Lanes, but the news that some of London's traffic lanes will be off-limits to normal drivers for weeks is likely to provide further fuel for those already beginning to question the value of hosting the Olympics.

Tuesday marked two years until the start of the 2012 Games and several of the responses on guardian.co.uk suggested not all were overwhelmed.

"What a waste of time and money ? invest in schools, instead of this pantomime," opined jobytug, in a comment that was recommended by 81 other readers.

He added: "This is a jingoistic playtime for kids who never grew up."

Now the revelation that 25,000 marketing partners ?"whose funding and support is essential to the running of the Games," the ODA said in a statement ? will be among those authorised to use the Games Lanes could leave another bitter taste.

(I should also state here that 28,000 journalists will also be among the users, along with 18,000 athletes and 11,000 officials).

The Games Lanes scythe across central London [pdf map] from east to west and vice versa. The transport minister, Theresa Villiers, admitted Londoners' daily journeys could be affected.

"Plans for the Olympic Route Network are an important part of ensuring the Games are a success," she said.

"Experience in other host cities clearly shows how vital this network is for enabling the world's greatest athletes to get where they need to be.

"There's no doubt that the Olympics will have an impact on many of the daily journeys made by Londoners, but the government, the mayor and London 2012 are working hard to ensure we keep the capital moving."

The ORN will cover more than 100 miles of London roads, and a further 171 miles outside the side road closures, banned turns, changes to traffic lights and pedestrian crossings, adjustments to bus and coach stops and the temporary suspension of bus stops (on the plus side, roads in the ORN will be free from roadworks).

You can view maps of the network on the official London 2012 website.

Annual rate of house price inflation drops to 6.6% as demand from homebuyers remains subdued in face of uncertain climate

House prices fell in July for the first time since February as demand subdued due to a lack of credit and nerves on the part of homebuyers reluctant to make commitments in the face of the economic outlook.

The average price of a UK property fell to £169,347 from £170,111 last month, according to the figures published by Nationwide Building society today.

"So far in 2010 demand from homebuyers has made little progress in building upon the recovery seen during much of 2009," said Martin Gahbauer, Nationwide's chief economist.

"Despite the introduction of a second stamp-duty holiday for the vast majority of first-time buyers and record low interest rates, the number of properties changing hands across the UK is still running at only half the levels seen prior to the financial crisis and recession."

The recorded 0.5% monthly fall means the annual rate of house price inflation dropped to 6.6% in July compared with 8.7% in June. Demand from homebuyers remains subdued, Nationwide said.

Gahbauer said a combination of restrictive credit conditions and uncertainty about the future economic outlook means only wealthier buyers remain in the market.

"Many potential buyers still lack the confidence to purchase their first home or trade up when faced with uncertainty over future income and employment prospects," he said.

Bank of England figures yesterday show that mortgage approvals fell more than expected in June and overall lending slowed, offering further evidence that the housing market is running out of steam following price rises last year. The bank said net mortgage lending growth slowed to £665m in June from May's £838m while mortgage approvals fell to 47,643 in June from 49,461 in May.

"This is the first time the annual rate has turned negative since April last year, but it is likely to remain so in future months as comparison is made with a stronger market towards the end of last year," said Paul Samter of the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

"Remortgaging activity also remains at exceptionally subdued levels. The low demand is being driven both by the lack of demand among those existing borrowers enjoying low rates, and tighter criteria that may be constraining those borrowers who do wish to remortgage."

The outlook remained bleak for homeowners, according to Nationwide, with concerns about the medium-term impact of fiscal austerity on personal finances "more than outweighing any potential optimism about the recovery's short-term cyclical momentum".

Howard Archer, from IHS Global Insight, said the figures supported his view that prices are likely to fall by between 3 and 5% in the second half of the year and lose further ground in 2011.

"The 0.5% house price drop in July adds to a now steady stream of weak data and survey evidence on the housing market, and further fuels our belief that house prices will fall back over the latter months of 2010 and very likely soften further in 2011."

Earlier this week a Hometrack survey showed house prices falling by 0.1% in July ? the first decline in 15 months according to its data. The report also indicated that talk of impending public spending cuts is hurting confidence, with a 1.3% fall in new buyers registering with agents and homes now taking 8.7 weeks to sell ? back to August 2009 levels.

Barack Obama is the first US president to appear on a daytime TV chatshow, joining Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg

Barack Obama today becomes the first sitting US president to make a studio appearance on a daytime television chatshow, reflecting on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the economic crisis and the fact his soon-to-be teenage daughters still, for the moment, "like" him.

Obama's third appearance on ABC's The View ? he was a guest when a presidential candidate in 2008 and earlier when promoting his book Dreams from My Father in 2004 ? was pre-recorded yesterday and will be aired in the US today.

The View has been compared to the UK's Loose Women, but with a harder edge and more focus on news. Obama is not the only person making their return today ? the show's creator, executive producer, and co-host Barbara Walters will make her first appearance since having heart surgery in May.

In snippets released by ABC prior to the show airing, Obama walked out to the now seemingly obligatory screams and cheers from the audience before kissing all five of the show's female hosts ? including Whoopi Goldberg.

"Well this is fun," Obama exclaimed, before immediately being brought back to earth by the 80-year-old Walters, one of the most revered broadcast journalists in the US.

"Well we hope so," Walters said. "But you know you've gone through a little bit of a beating over the last month, do you really think being on a show with five women who never shut up is going to be calming?"

Unperturbed, the president claimed he had been "trying to find a show that Michelle [Obama] actually watched", adding: "And so I thought this is it, right here."

Despite Walters' warning, the footage released so far suggest the appearance was actually relatively calming, with Obama appearing relaxed, talking about family life in the White House.

Asked by Walters to describe "what has been the rose, and what has been the thorn in the last month", the president was quick to describe his floral moment.

"The rose has to be a couple of days we took in Maine with Michelle, Sasha and Malia, and we went on bike rides and hikes," he said.

"The girls are getting old enough now where they're not quite teenagers yet, so they still like you," he explained, to laughter from the audience.

"They're full of opinions and ideas and observations, and its just a great age."

Describing the thorn, Obama had to think a little harder ? protesting "where do I begin here".

"Obviously the country has gone through a tough stretch since I took office," he said.

The president recalled the "non-stop effort" to stabilise the economy over the last 20 months, adding that the oil spill, two wars and the H1N1 pandemic had also had to be managed, however he insisted that "as much as you [Walters] said it's been tough for me, the truth is it's not tough for me".

"I've got people, pundits on the news who may say things about me, but you think what the American people have gone through . . . those are the folks who I draw inspiration from."

"So I don't spend a lot of time worrying about me, I spend a lot of time worrying about them."

George Bush appeared on the Dr Phil show in 2004 but the interview was pre-recorded at their ranch months before it aired.

Dentures sold at auction are one of several specially made to preserve PM's famous diction during rousing wartime speeches

A set of false teeth belonging to Winston Churchill's has been sold for £15,200 at an auction in Norfolk.

The upper dentures, one of several sets made for the wartime prime minister, were specially constructed to preserve his natural lisp and were so important he carried two pairs with him at all times.

The teeth, sold by the son of the dental technician who made them, had been expected to fetch a maximum of £5,000, but they were bought for more than three times that by a British collector of Churchill memorabilia.

The set of dentures were designed to be loose-fitting so that Churchill could preserve the diction famous from his radio broadcasts during the second world war, an expert said.

"From childhood, Churchill had a very distinctive natural lisp; he had trouble with his S's," said Jane Hughes, head of learning at the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. "These are the teeth that saved the world."

The medical museum displays a duplicate set of Churchill's dentures in a glass cabinet alongside other famous teeth including dentures worn by Queen Caroline, the estranged wife of King George IV.

"Churchill wanted to maintain [the lisp] because he was already so well known for it," she said. "The dentures wouldn't quite connect with the top of the mouth, but that was on purpose."

The dentures were made by the dental technician Derek Cudlipp, who produced three or four identical sets for Churchill. One set is believed be have been buried with the leader.

The false teeth were made just around the start of the war, when Churchill would have been about 65, Hughes said.

The politician is famous for his rousing speeches to the British nation during the war, but his dental issues are less well known. Hughes said Churchill had many problems with his teeth as a child and probably lost some of them quite early. The leader valued so highly the skill of his dentist, Wilfred Fish, that he nominated him for a knighthood.

Churchill served as prime minister from 1940 to 1945 and then from 1951 to 1955.

HMS Investigator was abandoned in 1853 trying to find earlier mission searching for north-west passage across North America

Canadian archaeologists have found a British ship abandoned more than 150 years ago in the quest for the north-west passage, the fabled sea route across North America, the head of the team said.

Marc-Andre Bernier, Parks Canada's head of underwater archaeology, said the HMS Investigator was found in shallow water in Mercy Bay along the northern coast of Banks Island in Canada's western Arctic. The ship had been abandoned in the ice in 1853 while trying to find the doomed earlier expedition of Sir John Franklin.

"The ship is standing upright in very good condition. It's standing in about 11 metre (36 feet) of water," he said. "This is the ship that sailed the last leg of the north-west passage."

The Investigator was one of many American and British ships sent in search of the HMS Erebus and the Terror, vessels commanded by Franklin in his ill-fated hunt for the north-west passage in 1845.

The Canadian environment minister, Jim Prentice, said the British government has been informed of the find, as well as the discovery of the bodies of three sailors.

Captained by Robert McClure, the Investigator set sail in 1850. When McClure brought the ship into the strait that now bears his name, he realised that he was on the final leg of the north-west passage.

But before he could sail into the Beaufort Sea, the ship was blocked by pack ice and forced to winter in Prince of Wales Strait, along the east coast of Banks Island.

The following summer, McClure tried again to sail to the end of the passage, but was again blocked by ice. He steered the ship and crew into a large bay on the island's north coast which he named the Bay of Mercy.

There they were to remain until 1853, when they were rescued by the crew of the HMS Resolute. The Investigator was abandoned.

"This is actually a human history," said Bernier. "Not only a history of the passage, but the history of a crew of 60 men who had to overwinter three times in the Arctic not knowing if they were going to survive."

The Parks Canada team arrived at Mercy Bay on 22 July. Three days later, the ice on the bay cleared enough that researchers were able to deploy side-scanning sonar from a small inflatable boat over the site where they believed the wooden ship had eventually sunk. Within 15 minutes, the Investigator was found.

The masts and rigging have long been sheared off by ice and weather. But the icy waters of the McClure Strait has preserved the vessel in remarkably good condition.

"It's incredible," said Prentice from Mercy Bay. "You're actually able to peer down into the water and see not only the outline of the ship but actually the individual timbers.

The graves of three sailors thought to have died of scurvy have been marked off and will be left undisturbed, said Bernier.

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55th over: England 190-4 (Collingwood 27, Morgan 44) Everyone is screaming and running for the exits, but I'm sticking to my post as this seems to be the last over before tea. It's a maiden. Right, I'm outta here before the flames start to lick at my knees. Andy Bull, who'll be delighted that we've moved the discussion on from an intelligent debate about referrals to TMS commentators to childrens' TV characters, will be here, probably, soon.

54th over: England 190-4 (Collingwood 27, Morgan 44) Morgan is a gnat's wing away from edging Kaneria behind. Akmal, typically, holds on. The bowler drops short, though, and finds himself flailed through the covers for four. Meanwhile, the alarm sound has changed to "Neeeaaaaah! Neeaaaaah! Please leave the building immediately. Do not use the lifts."

53rd over: England 184-4 (Collingwood 26, Morgan 39) That looked very, very close. Morgan attempts a sweep, but fails to make contact and finds himself clipped on the pad. Umpire says not out, but replays show it's pretty plum - Pakistan have to accept the decision, though, their referrals all used up. Morgan gets it right a ball or two later, picking up four. And in other news, the PA system here at Guardian Towers informs me that: "Awooga, awooga, we are investigating an alarm condition. It may be neccessary to evacuate the building. Please await further annmouncements." Oh lovely.

52nd over: England 180-4 (Collingwood 26, Morgan 35) Kaneria has at last found a little control, but there's little drama for either batsman. "It's no A-Team, but if we're looking at '80s television, what you want is Knight Rider with Aggers reprising the Hoff's Michael Knight role and Boycott as the car that never shuts up," writes Erik Petersen.

51st over: England 178-4 (Collingwood 25, Morgan 34) Just meandering a little towards tea now - England taking the odd single, Pakistan waiting for Aamer and Asif's batteries to get fully charged. Malik turns the last away from Morgan's groping edge. "To reverse the riff, which children's story favourites would make good TMS presenters?" ponders Robin Hazlehurst. "It would be lashings and lashings of jolly japes for the Famous Five, but it sort of is anyway. I'd quite like Ivor the Engine commenting on a fast bowler coming in on a long run - pshticuff, pshticuff ..."

50th over: England 177-4 (Collingwood 24, Morgan 34) Kaneria does indeed come back for more, and continues dragging the ball down short. At least he's turning it, though, which on this occasion makes it a little tricky for Collingwood to take advantage of the bad balls. Just two off the over.

49th over: England 175-4 (Collingwood 23, Morgan 34) These two are pulling England out of a hole here, and Pakistan look pretty toothless without Aamer and Asif. Malik finds himself clipped and pushed around for a trio of singles.

48th over: England 172-4 (Collingwood 21, Morgan 33) Kaneria is having a mare here - he lobs up a full toss which Collingwood gratefully thumps away to the boundary. Another single brings up the 50 partnership. Hang on, forget what I said last over, this is the shot of the session - Morgan reverse-sweeps for four, his bat a blur of willow. Surely we won't see Kaneira back for another?

47th over: England 163-4 (Collingwood 16, Morgan 29) Malik, arguably, despite his lack of threat, Pakistan's third-best bowler today, continues and Morgan produces with the shot of the session, an elegant dab sweep for four. He follows that up with a crunching drive for four more. "I was thinking that the Sky Team could do a cracking Fantastic Mr. Fox," writes Umran Sarwar. "David Gower of course is the silver fox with Boggis, Bunce and Bean, one fat, one short, and one lean would be (Sir) Ian Botham, David Lloyd and Bob Willis respectively. A thinking man's jackanory. That would be awesome."

46th over: England 154-4 (Collingwood 15, Morgan 21) Danish Kaneria returns, having gone for 20 from his four overs this morning. Morgan brings up England's 150, pushing the bowler's first ball behind square for four and then clumping him through the covers as Kaneira overpitches.

45th over: England 146-4 (Collingwood 15, Morgan 13) Malik continues, Collingwood keeps it tight. "Blowers on TMS doing The Very Hungry Caterpillar - it would really stretch the tail," reckons John Starbuck.

44th over: England 146-4 (Collingwood 15, Morgan 13) Holy moly, we have a boundary, the first since the 35th over. Collingwood cracks Gul to the cover boundary - and then repeats the trick! More runs in two balls than we've seen in the past eight overs. Gul follows up with a no ball, Asif throws in a misfield and Gul adds the icing by over-stepping once again and then over-pitches and allows Morgan to chip through miswicket for four more. "It might not be Wind in the Willows, but there is an A-Team cast from the commentary?" writes Iain King. "Ian Botham - Hannibal; David Gower - the Face; David Lloyd - Murdoch; Bob Willis - B A Baracas (should have been Geoff Boycott, but he would never pity a fool)."

43rd over: England 131-4 (Collingwood 6, Morgan 9) Malik concedes a hat-trick of singles. "Re. Michael Holding reading Winnie The Pooh. I think that I'd like to hear a cricket commentary team doing the Wind in the Willows, with different commentators doing the various characters," writes Hugh Maguire. "Toad of Toad Hall - Shane Warne, Ratty would be Tuffers, Moley - David Gower and Bob Willis the evil weasel. Any other suggestions from OBOers? We could commission a series."

42nd over: England 130-4 (Collingwood 5, Morgan 9) Malik

42nd over: England 128-4 (Collingwood 4, Morgan 8) Gul, an often overlooked presence in cricket's bird-based XIs, muscularly strides in once more - Morgan stays solid, but he's not looking hugely comfortable out there just now, prodding, poking and leaving whenever he can. "Re: The lunchtime Nettle Warrior thingy," writes Howard Waddington. "Was that your choice for N on the old alphabet dating or hers? If not yours, might I suggest: 'Nice sit down, with a cup of tea and a biscuit?'" I'm hardly 'Catch of the Century' but forcing my other half to undertake a four-hour assault course, while I sit around and eat flapjack is not on my list of Ideas For Great Dates.

41st over: England 128-4 (Collingwood 4, Morgan 8) Some spin now from Shoaib Malik. This ought to give England a little breathing space and indeed it does, Morgan denting, if not breaking, the shackles with a drive through the covers for one and Collingwood skipping down the pitch and pushing to mid-on for another. Malik has an odd, round-arm action, but does give it a decent tweak, although the threat is pretty minimal, really.

40th over: England 125-4 (Collingwood 3, Morgan 6) Dot, dot, dot, slash (for a dot), dot, ohferchrissakesitsanotherdot. "England may be wobbling here, but this is the same Pakistan attack that bowled the Aussies out for 88, so we're doing better than them. Does that we mean to get keep the Aschhhh... you-know-whats and don't need to bother with the winter ordeal?" writes Robin Hazlehurst. "On another note, if Occam's razor is rusty it won't shave well and will sting a bit, I reckon Occam needs a new blade or a full beard." Occam's electric nasal hair trimmer? Someone call Victor Kiam.

39th over: England 125-4 (Collingwood 3, Morgan 6) Michael Holding is doing some analysis on the low bounce - I'm not really listening to what he's saying, just letting the voice wash over. It occurs to me that I want him to read me Winnie The Pooh stories. At midnight. In the woods. I'm not sure what to make of that. Anyway, Asif beats Morgan after tempting him into an airy swish outside off and then finds the edge, but its one-bounce to third slip. Pakistan very much on top here - just two runs have come from the last four overs. And now we'll have some drinks.

38th over: England 125-4 (Collingwood 3, Morgan 6) Umar Gul replaces Aamer. Morgan pushes confidently for one. Collingwood has hearts in mouths briefly as he hesitantly keeps out a straight one and then again with a big waft with one that's wide but keeps low. Gul finishes off with a yorker. Good over - maintained the pressure that his colleagues have built.

37th over: England 124-4 (Collingwood 3, Morgan 5) Looking back at that appeal, Akmal hasn't covered himself in glory yet again - all he needs to do is get those gloves a foot further forward and the ball slaps in to his palms (whether it stays there is another issue). But he's on his heels a touch, a little static. Asif rumbles in once more and utterly beats Collingwood with a belter, pitching and flying past the outside edge. Pretty much unplayable that one. Another maiden.

36th over: England 124-4 (Collingwood 3, Morgan 5) Make that 25 out of 36. Aamer continues, but the two batsmen both look solid enough, with the edge just coming off the pace and swing. And, true to form, as I type "both look solid enough, with the edge just coming off the pace and swing", Morgan edges behind, Lurpak-gloved Kamral Akmal pouches (for a change) and its celebrations all round on the field. The umpires confer and decide it didn't carry, and carry it didn't. Cue a few pantomime boos from the Trent Bridge crowd. "Referral system or not, England are wobbling all over the place," writes Guy Hornsby. "KP's not looked comfortable at all, making Trott's scratchiness look like Goweresque fluidity. This should be a real test for Morgan, with the ball moving around. I don't think you could get any further removed from a ODI flourish full of clattered sixes and reverse sweeps. But I'd like to see him get a big score today. Pakistan's bowlers are coming into their rhythmn. This is what test cricket's all about really, isn't it? Well, that and this."

35th over: England 123-4 (Collingwood 2, Morgan 5) Asif zips one past the outside edge of Morgan's bat, but then strays a little straight trying for the lbw and sees Morgan smite him through midwicket for four. They've complemented each other very well, Asif and Aamer, each offering a different kind of threat, but they'll have to have a rest soon - as a pair they've bowled 24 of the 35 overs.

34th over: England 119-4 (Collingwood 2, Morgan 1) So, England rocking after a couple of hammer blows. This is an interesting situation for Morgan to come in to face. 118 for four following two quick wickets - classic Test No6 territory, and, to be perfectly honest, the sort of situation that'll be used as evidence by the doubters should he fail. He's off the mark with a dab to leg. "I see KP's decision to tell Hampshire that he doesn't want to play for them anymore long before the end of the season, prompting them not to pick him, has worked out well," notes Paul Wakefield. "A bit like going to the Nettle Warrior thingy without a plastic chair to sit on."

WICKET! Trott 38 lbw b Aamer (England 118-4) Trott wasn't convinved about referring that, and no wonder. It's going on to hit the top of off, Aamer nipping it back in just enough. Wonderful bowling.

REFERRAL! Trott 38 lbw b Aamer Trott is smashed on the pad, attempting to leave.

33rd over: England 118-3 (Trott 38, Collingwood 2) Not a great shot, by Pietersen. Rusty is the word on the commentators' lips and it's hard to argue with that. It's your Occam's razor, isn't it? Collingwood gets off the mark immediately with a clip to leg.

WICKET! Pietersen 9 b Asif (England 116-3) "Is the match referee allowed some discretion over reprimanding fielding sides for slow over rates when Trott is in?" wonders John Starbuck. I have to say I don't know, although Pakistan have done their best to negate his compulsive wandering and scratching by simply turning around and running in as soon as they get back to their respective marks. Trott neatly places Asif away for a few through the offside, but we've got bails all over the place next up. KP's corridor of uncertainty has been more of a grand palacial hallway this afternoon and the bowler sends the ball skipping down the middle of it, finding the inside edge and sending the bails pinging into the Nottingham sky.

32nd over: England 113-2 (Trott 35, Pietersen 9) "Pakistan are now at the mercy of the umpires," says Ramiz Raja on Sky Sports, a slightly odd way of looking at it. Pietersen mis-times a cut/drive, but then gets a feathery tough as Aamer drifts down the leg side and picks up four cheap runs. Aamer bites back by beating the batsman once more with a tremendous, prodigously swinging delivery.

31st over: England 108-2 (Trott 35, Pietersen 5) After a string of dots KP gleefully accepts a full, wide one from Asif and spanks a cracking boundary. But next up it looks like Asif has found the edge - there's a definite noise. Umpire says not out, Pakistan say let's have another review ... Not out. KP clearly clipped his pad with the bat, which produced the noise, but there was clear daylight between bat and ball. "Before I mention the cricket, have you seen some of the pervy comments being uttered about your missus in the blog section of her piece?" begins Ranil Dissanayake. (Yes I have and feel somewhere between proud and disturbed). "Aamer is a glorious prospect, but as I mentioned to a friend recently, Ishant Sharma looked every bit as good for his first two series' and in the words of Frank Drebin, he's now 'just a bad joke, and not even a very good one at that'. Let's let the lad get to 100 wickets before we give him the golden crown."

30th over: England 104-2 (Trott 35, Pietersen 1) Trott plays and misses at a full wide one, and Flora-gloves Kamran Akmal spills the ball once more. Another maiden for Aamer, whose figures now read 10-3-19-2. "So let me get this straight, Tough Guy," begins John Sanger. "Your delightful ladyfriend ran through fire, crawled under barbed wire, battled with nettles and various other hardcore manliness-testing activities and emerged unscathed. While you ran around the edges taking pictures of her? Then complained about not getting to sit down?" It wasn't that I couldn't sit down - I did, but the grass was a little damp.

29th over: England 104-2 (Trott 35, Pietersen 1) Mohammad Asif returns after a mixed bag this morning and beats Pietersen with a beaut, moving away a fraction just outside off. The fourth cracks KP on the pad - a big appeal is turned down but they've asked for a review ... it's hitting the top of leg-stump, but only just, so not out. He was a long way down the track, which might have been the key. A slightly depsondent Asif fails to make him play with the rest.

28th over: England 104-2 (Trott 35, Pietersen 1) Aamer continues after lunch and clips Pietersen's thigh pad with his first, bringing the ball back in as the batsman attempts to leave. Leave, block, leave, block, leave goes fun-loving swish-merchant IJL Trott. "Fair play to the other half," writes Philip Woodger. "Mine is heading off to walk the Haute route in a couple of weeks time. I will be relying on her own photographs to prove she did it. I will catch up on all those lunches/evening meals with mates that I should do all year, or any other ideas?"

On referrals: I'd like to see us roll back the clock to the 1800s, when contentious decisions would be decided between the Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Arundel over a flagon of ale. Get those two on the big screen at the ground, listen in as they discuss who's got the biggest estate, and then celebrate widly as the pair get up to shake hands and carry on with the game.

Some emails

"With regards to the debate over the referral system, the level of performance of certain umpires has cast ruinous spell over too many tests in recent years," writes Alex Butler. "While Darryl Harper may be an extreme example he isn't the only one at fault, and having the cut and thrust of a good test trumped by a series of howlers necessitates this apparent afront to sportsmanship. "

"It's obvious that Mohammad Amir is the best young seamer in world cricket (unless Steve Finn does a Laker in this match)," writes Gary Naylor, "but, with pace bowling at a low ebb around the globe, he's a Dale Steyn hamstring pull away from being the best pace bowler in the world. Not bad for a kid of 18 who already looks a real thinker as well as an athlete - though someone should tell him how to ask for a referral."

Afternoon all. Before I get stuck into the cricket, let me point you in the direction of this. It's written by my other half, who ran some race or other, but more importantly it features my photographic debut on the site. See how the pictures are beautifully framed? Isn't the lighting marvellous? And it was bloody knackering carrying that camera round all day. Four hours on my feet, with nothing but the odd cup of coffee, quite a lot of flapjack and the occasional sit down to sustain me.

Returning to Trent Bridge, it's clear that Mohammad Aamer has rapidly become one of the world's must-watch cricketers, the sort of players that excites no matter which mast you've got your colours nailed to - Tamim Iqbal is another who we've seen in England this summer. At times this morning it's been Aamer v England.

LUNCH

So, John Ashdown will be here to talk you through the afternoon. Make sure you email your nonsense to him and not me. As a parting gift I'm going to leave you this: the latest in the ongoing series of disturbing pictorial representations of the 2010 English cricket season by our old friend, Mr A McGuigan, Enjoy.

A very interesting session that. Aamer looked head and shoulders above the rest of the attack. He has bowled eight overs and taken two for 19 so far, and if only Pakistan had referred that lbw decision at the end, he would have had Trott too. As it is, Mogodon man, who looks in excellent touch, will bat on into the afternoon session.

27th over: England 103-2 (Trott 35 Pietersen 1) Asif returns for an over at Pietersen before the end of the session. KP takes a single, Trott survives the final ball and that's that. The players walk off, leaving Trott scratching out his guard in the middle. "Got to agree with Roy Allen there," says Robert Wickes (anyone out there sense that I'm shaping this debate to my will by picking all the emails I agree with and omitting the ones I don't? No? Good.) "The Laws of cricket are built around the statement 'If, in the opinion of the umpire.....'. What is unclear about that? It's black and white. Absolute accuracy has never been required. This need for certainty is unfortunately spawned by the football mentality where followers appear to lack the intelligence to understand the concept that it's OK for officials to make mistakes because the laws of the game are not based on fact and as long as the officials are fair, it does not mean you can't enjoy the game."

26th over: England 102-2 (Trott 35 Pietersen 0) Aamer switches around the wicket to bowl to Trott, who squeezes an edge past the slips for four to bring up England's 100. What bowling! Aamer whips the next ball back in the other way towards Trott's pads. He totally fails to pick it and to me that looks plumb enough to prompt a gasp of "that must be out", but the umpire's finger stays down and, bafflingly, Pakistan don't bother to appeal or even refer the decision. That's a poor decision, because Hawkeye agrees with Bull - it was out.

25th over: England 98-2 (Trott 31 Pietersen 0) Shoaib Malik will get a chance to bowl a little off-spin before the break. His first ball turns, but hardly gets above ankle height. The bounce, Sir Iron Bottom tells us, is going to be getting very uneven by day three. Pietersen over-balances trying to play a fuller delivery from Malik. It looks like he actually tripped over the trough that Trott has dug at that end of the crease. "Couldn't agree more with Roy" thunders Dave Peregrine, "The day that cricket becomes about actually getting things right is the day our sport dies. The referral system is setting a precedent that paves the way for travesties such as an efficient and effective ECB or a meaningful structure for coaching the game in state schools. Don't believe me? Just wait and see. If we allow people at the top of our game to start making the correct decisions, these things will happen!"

WICKET! Strauss 25 c Kamran Akmal b Aamer (24th over: England 93-2) Aamer is back into the attack and he's struck immediately. This time Kamran clings on to the catch. Just. Strauss, lured into a more aggressive mindset by the more mediocre bowling he's been playing out since Aamer was last in the attack, played a loose drive at a wider ball and snicked it behind.

23rd over: England 91-1 (Strauss 45 Trott 24) Trott spanks a low full toss through mid-wicket for four. "So will your Missus being moving into the Fun House of you Smyth, Ingle and Booth?" asks Dominic Wright, "...I'm assuming all you guys live together right?" Booth has moved out to the Daily Mail's mock-tudor mansion in the suburbs actually, Dominic. Besides which, I know you're just trying to butter us all up for the ensuing charity plug: "As no one has stuck their head over the parapet with a charity plug can I step up to the plate? I'm doing a challenge to play an hour of real tennis (as opposed to lawn tennis) doubles at every club in the UK in the shortest time. It's 23 courts in three days and 1,200 miles of driving. We're trying to raise £4k for the Multiple Sclerosis Society and details on how to donate are at http://www.justgiving.com/Chasing-Britain. Huge thanks to all of you in advance!"

22nd over: England 87-1 (Strauss 45 Trott 20) Butt leaps to his right at mid-off to cut off a firm drive from Trott. That's the first decent piece of fielding Pakistan have produced today, and it has come from the captain. If only a few more of his team could follow his example.

REFERRAL! Trott 13 lbw Kaneria (England 83-1) Up goes umpire de Silva's finger! Trott is given out to the first ball of Kaneria's over. Immediately though, Trott asks for the referral. And the replays soon reveal that he got an inside edge on the ball. The crowd cheer, the umpire crosses his arms and Trott carries on. So that is decision overturned. Two balls later, and Trott is forcing four away through the on side. "Regardless of the accuracy of the decision, this review system is a disaster" says Roy Allen, who I suspect had prepared this email earlier, so quick was it to arrive in my inbox "I do not believe that getting every decision 100% correct is what matters. Far more important is playing the game in the right spirit. Allowing a batsman to appeal a decision giving him out is totally alien to cricket." I agree Roy, but many more don't.

20th over: England 79-1 (Strauss 44 Trott 13) A maiden over from Gul. I'd write more but...

19th over: England 79-1 (Strauss 44 Trott 13) Kaneria floats up what will almost certainly be the worst delivery of the entires series, a looping chest-high wide full toss, which Trott, despite his surprise, manages to smear away to mid-wicket. The acute embarrassment Kaneria feels after offering up such filth provokes him into following up with a fierce leg break, which pitches on middle and rips past Trott's dangling bat. "Perhaps Matthew in Howdon could clamp his hands over his ears and grimace after every conversation with this Steven character and use half a bottle of hand gel every time he picks anything up from his desk," writes Alex Walsh, "I've been doing that for years with all my colleagues and goes someway to explaining why, at 12.15, I have yet to speak to a single person in the office."

18th over: England 72-1 (Strauss 41 Trott 10) "Matthew in Howdon should correct his irritating workmate's grammar," suggests Jenya Romanski. "People tend to suspend unnecessary conversation with people who do not validate them." You're quite right Jenya. I've been ignoring John Starbuck's emails ever since he wrote in this morning to complain about my typos. Strauss is looking in ruthless mood today. He has matured into the kind of player that you really cannot afford to drop. The reprieve only seems to make him stronger. Again Gul's length is a little too short, and Strauss crashes a vicious cut away for four past point. A soul-sapping shot.

17th over: England 66-1 (Strauss 35 Trott 10) 75 minutes into the match and Danish will get his first bowl. "I actually take some comfort from the fact that even people like you can and do get married," says Kat Petersen, before thinking about what she has said and hastily adding the lie, "I mean people dedicated to the OBO rather than any personal insult. There's hope for us all yet. Because I'm certainly not going out to buy my own mustard spoons." Kaneria's first ball is wide and turns wider. His second is barely any better, and Trott pats it away square for a single. He is finding plenty of turn, but hasn't got his line or length right yet.

16th over: England 64-1 (Strauss 34 Trott 9) "Did someone say Bull is getting married?" gasps Simon Rhoades, "Frankly, I'm appalled that this celebrated bohemian iconoclast is supporting such a bourgeois institution. Still, we can console ourselves with the certainty that the ceremony will be suitably pagan and non-traditional. Something on a stormy hilltop at the confluence of a half-dozen ley lines involving isiZulu praise singers, Andean fertility rituals and a couple of garlanded yaks from Ulan Bator, I would imagine." Yes, Zulus, yaks, ley lines and mustard spoons. And mung beans. Strauss is really ticking now - Gul drops just a little short and Strauss wallops a pull away square for four. The boundary fielder should have stopped it, but dived over the ball rather than onto it. Gul scowls and swings his fist through the air in frustration. His next ball is better, and beats Strauss' edge. A single puts Trott on strike, and he slaps a drive out towards cow corner for three. Pakistan look less than half the threat they did when Aamer was in the attack.

15th over: England 56-1 (Strauss 29 Trott 6) "Is Matthew Howdon seriously asking the OBO crowd for advice on social interaction?" wonders Olly Bevan, "My sense is that the majority of us are more akin to 'Stephen' (i.e. awkwardly interfering in conversations and interrupting social interactions) than to the man with loads of 'friends' at the office." Whatever next? An attractive stroke from Jon Trott perhaps? And there he goes, thumping four through the covers.

14th over: England 52-1 (Strauss 29 Trott 2) Having spent the last two overs watching Strauss bat from the non-striker's end, Trott finally gets a share of the strike and adds a single to his score. Gul is continuing. I really don't understand why Aamer has come off after he was bowling so well. That's the shot of the day so far from Strauss, crisply driving four runs through long-off. Drinks! Hallelujah!

13th over: England 46-1 (Strauss 24 Trott 1) Matthew in Howdon is another man making a plea for help: "Knowing that most people reading this are at work, I have a question. I currently sit next to an annoying tool (let's call him Steven) and he won't stop butting into my conversation with the work colleagues I actually get on with. What makes it even more annoying is that he then lingers for about 30 seconds after the conversation has been killed (by him). I normally let it slip but he just called cricket a waste of time so now I need to stop him talking to me. Any ideas?" Back in the middle it transpires that Asif has simply switched ends, which seems a strange strategy given that Aamer was bowling so well.

12th over: England 44-1 (Strauss 23 Trott 1) If you're wondering where all the cool kids are, you might find them over on the county cricket - live! blog, this summer's cult craze among cricket fans down Hoxton way. Umar Gul is on now, Asif taking a spell after delivering five overs for 22. Gul seems to be having some trouble getting his run up right, and pulls out of his first two deliveries. "It's not the fact that you're getting married that's annoying," says Jonatahan James, "it's your blatant disregard for your lonely but loyal OBOers. You used to be one of us and now you decide to go all commercial and sell us out on the FIRST DAY of a test. I've never felt so alone."

11th over: England 43-1 (Strauss 23 Trott 1) Aamer slides the first two deliveries down wide of off stump, dragging Trott across his crease. The inswinger will be on its way shortly I'm sure. The third is straighter and skims the outside edge. My word this is good bowling. The ball is really fizzing off the pitch now and Warne is waxing lyrical in the commentary box - "this boy really does understand left-arm fast bowling." Like Warne, Paul Jaines seems to be a man with no shame: "Do what I did with my wedding list - we put loads of crap on the list (pots, pans etc, but not mustard spoons) and then after auntie Doris et al had all paid for the crap stuff on the list at the department store we then got the department store to swap it aforementioned crap for bottles of fine wine. I got at least 8 cases of the stuff out of this cunning plan."

10th over: England 42-1 (Strauss 23 Trott 0) "There seems a clear symmetry to this morning's proceedings," suggests Duncan Timson, "what with Strauss being dropped and your good self getting married... a large amount of good fortune after a period spent scratching around unconvincingly." Strauss struggles to keep out Asif here. At one point he walks down the wicket to try and counter the swing, only to pat the ball out to mid-wicket. The sixth delivery is a jaffa, and shoots past the outside edge. The real contest though, is happening at the other end...

9th over: England 37-0 (Strauss 21 Cook 7) "Have you managed to accidentally' book a honeymoon to Sri Lanka or somewhere else playing test cricket at the time?" asks Geraint Morgan, "or did you look around and see the only test match on was Afganistan vs Canada." Actually the good folk at the charity Afghan Connection did invite me out to Kabul in September to attend a cricket camp for kids, but for some reason my fiancee just wasn't convinced that it would be a good way to spend the honeymoon.

WICKET! Cook 8 c Farhat b Aamer (England 42-1) Cook goes! This time the edge flew to first slip rather than the 'keeper, and that made all the difference. Imran Farhat took the catch, and Cook goes. Again, it was a beauty of a ball, straight enough to force the batsman to play but swinging away just enough to take the edge. Cook was caught loitering back in his crease, and then angled his bat at the ball. Here comes Jon Trott. Interestingly, Aamer does not bother waiting for Trott to go through his laborious pre-delivery routine but steams in and serves up a fizzing inswinging yorker. Trott drops his bat just in time to get a little inside edge on it before it hits his pads.

8th over: England 37-0 (Strauss 21 Cook 7) Strauss flicks four more away to the leg side, and then edges a single away to the same place. Cook looks even less sure of himself, and the next delivery snicks along the floor through the slips for four. The next ball disappears down the leg side for four byes. Bizarrely, Kamran made no attempt to field that delivery at all, but stood still and watched it whizz by. A single from the final ball completes an expensive from Asif.

7th over: England 23-0 (Strauss 16 Cook 3) A single from Strauss puts Cook on strike against Aamer for the first time today, and the very first delivery he faces draws forth a confident lbw appeal from the Pakistanis. It was just a touch too high when it hit to convince. "I'm hoping todays OBO will fill the void left by the Tour de France. My friend's hoping for the same thing and we've got a pint riding on who can get the first comment printed," says somebody whose name I have temporarily, and maliciously, misplaced. "Do I need to come up with anything witty to get a look in today, or will this suffice?" I'm guessing you can figure that one out for yourself.

6th over: England 22-0 (Strauss 15 Cook 3) "Are you going to put a link to your wedding list up on the OBO?" asks Will Frost. "I am not saying that I or any other OBO'er would actually buy you anything but I wouldn't mind a nose around to see if it it's all mung beans and birkenstocks." Sadly I allowed my fiancee to take control of the wedding list, and as a result it is mainly filled with cutlery. Do we really need four mustard spoons? Yes, apparently we do. Remember the first day of the first Test in 2006? Pakistan dropped five catches and England ended up making 558 in the first innings. A maiden over this one.

5th over: England 22-0 (Strauss 15 Cook 3) Strauss tries to leave the ball but gets into a terrible tangle and ends up toe-ending four runs through the slips. And that's a drop! And a bad one too. Oh Kamran! That's just awful wicket-keeping. It was a lovely delivery, swinging away after pitching on off stump. Strauss had to play at it, but the ball jagged back and snicked off the outside edge. It coasted through to Akmal at waist height, went into his grasp and then just popped back out again, as though his gloves were made of rubber. Strauss should have been out there. Pitiful wicketkeeping. Akmal had moved to early over to the leg side, and then had to shift back the other way when the ball took the edge.

4th over: England 14-0 (Strauss 11 Cook 3) Cook was Umar Gul's bunny the last time these two teams played in England, back in 2006. He got him four times in seven innings. I wonder if the Pakistanis remember that? The sixth ball swings back in towards leg, and Cook leans over to the off and threads two runs through a gap in the field at mid-wicket.

3rd over: England 12-0 (Strauss 11 Cook 1) "Honeymoon?" says Chris Purcell, "really?" That must be one of the most efficiently insulting emails I've ever been sent. Aamer's speed is up in the mid 80s now, and he has settled down on a line outside off-stump. Strauss watches the first five deliveries sail by. Well, I say sail but the third ball came perilous close to his outside edge. The sixth is the inswinger, as Athers spots, but it doesn't quite come out right.

2nd over: England 12-0 (Strauss 11 Cook 1) Asif starts at the other end. Simon Katich recently picked Asif out as being the best bowler in the Pakistani attack, despite all the hoopla over Aamer's form. His first delivery swings back onto Cook's pads, and is tapped away for a single. His second does exactly the same thing, and Strauss stands up on his tip toes and flicks four runs away square. Butt duly moves a man over to fill the empty space that Strauss had just exploited. This pitch look sluggish, the ball barely bouncing above thigh-high. Ohh. That's a brute of a ball. pitching on middle and off and swinging way back to hit Strauss's pads. The Pakistanis appeal, but umpire Hill shakes his head. Hawkeye shows that the ball moved so much in the air it would have beaten leg-stump, so Pakistan were right not to ask for a referral. The next delivery is straighter, and Strauss pushes three runs down the ground.

1st over: England 2-0 (Strauss 2 Cook 0) England's first runs of the day come from a thick outside edge to third man. otherwise it's an uneventful first over as Aamer struggles to settle on the right line, spraying the ball either too wide or too straight to trouble.

A quick word from our friends over at the Wisden Cricketer, who are looking for a little help: 'The Wisden Cricketer is looking ahead to the Ashes by putting together a piece with your stories of travelling Australia - or watching the series in extraordinary places. They want to know about people who have re-mortgaged their home to travel, any odd methods of transport to get there, things that have gone wrong on the way and anyone who has fallen in love with cricket having been reluctantly dragged along for the ride, watched the Ashes up a mountain in South America by fastening an aerial to a tree etc. If anyone
has such a story, email Daniel Brigham on daniel.brigham@wisdencricketer.com"

A quick spot of retrospective apostrophe editing (Leed's!?) and we're ready to start. Here come Strauss and Cook, windmilling their bats around their heads as Jerusalem blasts out around the ground. Mohammad Aamer is marking out his run, and Strauss is scratching out his mark in the crease.

"Is there any news on the return to fitness of Graham Onions?" asks Chris Rose, mindful of England's forgotten man, "With Shahzad & Bresnan hovering around the squad, I'm wondering about the likely seam attack we'll take on the winter tour that shall not be named." The only thing Onions is going to be opening any time soon is a primary school in Darlington. But Durham coach Geoff Cook hopes that Onions will be back bowling again in September.

Just in case you missed it and have a yen to read something a little better than the baloney I'm going to fill the next few minutes with, go and have a look at Mike Selvey's majestic piece on Bob Wyatt, his grandfather and bodyline bowling.

"You having a holiday then?" asks the nosey Ally A, "I thought the series was four tests over four weeks. Where are you going? I only ask because I'm heading off for a holiday in three weeks, and forewarned is forearmed..." Not so much a holiday as a honeymoon old stick. Which means I'm going to have to squeeze a stag in somewhere in the midst of this series. I suspect it'll end being a quick pint of lunchbreak 'liver-compromiser' with Rob Smyth, such is the planning I've put into the thing...

A classic case of the commentator's curse here, from David Wall: "Before the action starts here, what do you make of the current score between Sri Lanka and India? I'm always pleased to see Tendulkar getting a score but that's ridiculous, isn't it? Murali must have been talking to the groundsman in Columbo before making up his mind to retire in Galle. If he'd had to bowl there he'd have been finished for all forms of cricket and not just Tests." And no sooner did that email land than the news flickered up in the top corner of my computer screen: SR Tendulkar c ?HAPW Jayawardene b Dilshan 203 (347b 23x4 1x6) SR: 58.50. Preposterously, that's Tendulkar's 48th Test century.

While you stew on that, I'm going to pop off and grab the first of the many cups of coffee that will sustain me through the next three weeks.

And Pakistan are unchanged from the line-up that won at Leeds last week: Salman Butt, Imran Farhat, Azhar Ali, Umar Amin, Umar Akmal, Shoaib Malik, Kamran Akmal, Mohammad Aamer, Umar Gul, Danish Kaneria, Mohammad Asif.

The team news is that there is not much by the way of team news: England are exactly as we expected them to be, with Tim Bresnan the man to miss out. They look like this: Andrew Strauss, Alastair Cook, Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, Eoin Morgan, Matt Prior, Graeme Swann, Stuart Broad, James Anderson, Steven Finn.

I've arrived just in time for the toss. England have won it and chosen to have a bat. Interesting decision that. Strauss is going straight into the deep end. Such is the disparity between the quality of Pakistan's batting and bowling that he surely must have been tempted to stick the opposition in regardless. Salman suggests that as there's a little cloud cover overhead it may not be such a bad toss to lose, the merest hint of a smile spreading around the corner of his mouth as he talks, though he adds that he would have chosen to bat first himself had he won as he agrees with Strauss that the pitch looks a little dry.

Morning everyone. Sitting comfortably? Then let's begin.

Torture Tunnels, Death Plunge, Stalag Escape ? these are just a few of the obstacles tackled by competitors in the Nettle Warrior race. Would 'wetneck' Rachel Dixon go the distance?

Gallery: The best pictures from the event

I am crouching beside the Torture Tunnels. Groans escape the entrance hole, punctuated by shouts of pain. A wave of panic washes over me, but I've come this far; I can't give up now. I take a deep breath and drop down into the muddy gap. As I start to drag myself through a narrow concrete pipe, in the pitch-black, a woman screams: she's just been caught by an electric wire, invisible in the darkness.

This is Nettle Warrior, the summer version of Tough Guy, an endurance event in Perton, Staffordshire. Like the original, which takes place in January, Nettle Warrior involves a gruelling cross-country run and assault course. Unlike Tough Guy, competitors don't have to deal with sub-zero temperatures. To compensate, they go twice around the assault course instead of once, spend more time submerged in muddy water, and tackle 7ft stinging nettles. Suffice to say, it's no walk in the park.

The organisers conjure an aura of terror in the build-up: the race is billed as the "most dangerous test of mental and physical pain, fear and endurance" in the world. We had to sign death warrants before competing, were inundated with warnings about hypothermia, tetanus and 'flesh rippers', and were emailed tales of past participants' terrible injuries. The scare tactics worked: I was petrified.

The macho nature of the event is also hyped up. Officials wrote our race numbers on our foreheads in marker pen. On successful completion of the race, Tough Guys are permitted to shout "Yohimbé", which apparently translates as "My dick's bigger than yours". Women are vastly outnumbered by men, and tend to be accompanied by solicitous male partners.

However, as many readers pointed out when I wrote about my training regime, Tough Guy/Nettle Warrior is not really terrifying at all (provided, as tomlozethwaite put it, "you don't mind heights, fire, water, mud or confined spaces. Or barbed wire. Or nettles"), nor is it an ultra-serious test of fitness. The first clue to this was the gang of guys dressed as Smurfs. And the women dressed as fairies. And the man wearing nothing but a thong ? It is a challenging test of endurance, though, and above all it is a lot of fun.

In the moments before the cannon fired to start the race, I was overcome with a kind of grim resignation. The start is staggered, and as a 'wetneck' (first-timer), I was at the back of the pack. When I finally crossed the starting line, I half-ran, half-slid down the steep slope and set off through what resembled a minefield (they were actually flares, but created a convincingly smoky warzone effect).

As a very reluctant jogger I had dreaded the cross-country run more than anything else, so I was probably one the few competitors to actively welcome the pits filled with muddy water that greeted us almost immediately. Anything to break up the run. When I emerged, soaking wet and caked in filth, and ran on feeling twice as heavy as usual, I did rethink my enthusiasm somewhat. But with more than 2,500 runners the trail ahead quickly filled up, and soon there were more bottlenecks than clear runs, allowing plenty of chances for a breather.

This quickly emerged as a theme: get wet and muddy; queue for a bit; run when you get the chance. Luckily, the weather was kind - overcast but warm. In January, it must be a different story. As previous competitors had warned me, it's nearly impossible to get ahead of the pack and finish in a fast time unless you start near the front. For most, though, the challenge is merely to complete the event, not to try to win it. As the founder, Billy Wilson (aka Mr Mouse), said on Sunday: "It's not a race, it's an event - it's for people to come and challenge the Tough Guy course. Everybody here is a winner."

The slaloms, a punishing series of hill runs, are infamous in Tough Guy circles, so I was relieved to run up and down them with ease ? or so I thought. In actual fact, they were just the warm-up hills. I defy anyone to tackle the real slaloms with anything approaching ease. Imagine a sheer hillside. Now picture yourself climbing up and running down it, again ? and again ? and again. I think there were around a dozen slaloms in all, though it's hard to be sure - by the end I was a little delirious.

The rest of the run was a breeze in comparison: crawling under nets and jumping over giant hay bales were nothing next to those hills. That is, until we reached the mud slaloms. Similar to the hill slaloms, these involved sliding down a muddy bank into pond full of filth, clambering out again - with great difficulty if, like me, you're somewhat vertically challenged - moving down the bank, and repeating. And repeating. And repeating. It was at this point that the utter pointlessness of the whole endeavour hit home to everyone, and people reacted in one of two ways. They either embraced the futility, as I did, and doggedly ploughed on - or they cheated. In fact, from this moment onwards the cheating - mainly skipping obstacles - was rife. Not that I'm bitter ...

On a more positive note, this was also the point that the legendary Tough Guy spirit was revealed and everyone started helping everyone else, offering leg-ups out of ponds or holding out a helping hand from the bank. The whole race was notable for its camaraderie and cheerful, 'we're all mugs together' atmosphere.

Slaloms over and nearly two hours in, I finally hit the assault course. Obstacles came thick and fast: the Colditz Walls, the Behemoth, the Dead Leg Swamp, the Stalag Escape ? The indoor climbing training I had done came into its own as I tackled the intimidatingly named A-frames, cargo nets and rope crossings. The only hairy moment came when a particularly tall man chose the same roped route as me, stretching the two ropes so far apart that I almost lost my grip and fell headlong into the waiting nettles.

My favourite obstacle was, contrary to its disturbing name, the Death Plunge. This involved walking the plank, plunging into the lake below, and swimming to shore - tremendous fun. The obstacle I had most feared, the Underwater Tunnels, had been replaced this year with some simple log ducking, which was both a relief and a letdown.

I was thankful for my small stature on several occasions. The aforementioned Torture Tunnels were agony for the legions of large, muscular men dragging themselves on their bellies through a very confined space, but relatively easy for anyone who could fit through on their hands and knees (I even managed to avoid the electric shocks). Ditto the crawls through tyres and under barbed wire.

A lake-based log carry and a rafting challenge are unique to the summer event. Some competitors were shivering thanks to the prolonged immersion in the cold water, but I'd taken up kayaking as part of my training and become accustomed to it, which was a big help.

On my second circuit of the assault course the runners thinned dramatically, leading me to conclude that either a) a lot of people had dropped out, b) a lot of people had skipped the second lap, or c) I was very slow. I think it was probably a combination of all three.

I didn't have much time to worry about it as I slogged my way towards the end, leaping up and over the Anaconda as I went. There was just time for one more crippling hill climb, one more slide in the mud, and one more soaking in filth before I rounded the corner and made a break for the finish line. The relief was immense, but so was the sense of achievement. Yohimbé!

My top tips for Nettle Warrior

Train harder than you need to. I had no ambitions beyond completing the event without injury, but I trained hard: boxing, climbing, kayaking, running, cycling, strength training, yoga, team sports ? This made the event itself pretty easy, and dramatically sped up my recovery.

Work on your balance, grip and core strength. You'll need them all for the assault course.

Enter with a friend or a group. I was on my own, thinking that I wouldn't want to hold someone back, or be held back myself. In actual fact, the bottlenecks mean it's easier to stay together than to go it alone. Unless you're ultra-competitive, it's more of a fun challenge than a race, and most things are more fun with two.

Plan ahead. If you do want to compete with the frontrunners, pay extra for a better start position. Failing that, get fit enough to sprint the first section of the run to overtake the crowds. By the time you get to the slaloms, it's too late.

Wear gloves. This was a piece of last-minute advice kindly emailed to me by reader Chris Pile. I opted for fingerless cycling gloves and they were invaluable. Otherwise, as Chris pointed out, "The wet ropes will rip up your bare hands." Ouch.

Take a supporter. Supporters can get close to the action, so they can ply you with jelly babies and sports drinks when you need them, and take lots of embarrassing pictures.

Have fun! Nettle Warrior allows you to be a kid again: you get wet and muddy, feel unfathomably proud of yourself, and go to bed tired but happy. What could be better?

Over to you

I'm really interested to hear how my experience of Nettle Warrior tallied with that of other competitors. Did you compete in this year's event? How was it for you? Perhaps you've done it in past years, or maybe you've braved the January version?

I'm also looking for a new fitness challenge, preferably one that combines pain with fun, rather than anything deadly serious - think Total Wipeout or Gladiators, not the Marathon des Sables. Any suggestions will be gratefully received.

He was once nominated for a best director Oscar, but while Branagh brings gravitas to Thor, Marvel's latest superhero project, initial impressions from the new footage suggest an over-reliance on CGI

? Watch the footage here

"I just thought it sounded like a weird idea because Kenneth Branagh's directing it, so I was just like: 'Kenneth Branagh doing Thor is super-weird, I've gotta do it'."

That's Natalie Portman's take on Thor, the next instalment in Marvel's ongoing bid to bring its vast catalogue to the big screen (or at least, those characters who weren't auctioned off to other studios before the company worked out that it could do a better job itself). She's right, isn't she? Branagh's involvement is pretty much the main thing the film has going for it: it may have been 21 years since he was nominated for a best director Oscar for Henry V while still in his 20s, but his involvement still gives the project a certain gravitas.

Inevitably, Branagh has the denizens of Asgard speaking the Queen's English, while the earthlings whom the Norse deity encounters after being thrown out of heaven are resolutely American. Sir Anthony Hopkins is Odin, Thor himself is Chris Hemsworth, while the villainous Loki is Branagh's old mucker Tom Hiddleston, an alumni of the stage version of Ivanov, for which Ken won a best actor critics' circle award in 2008. Amusingly, The Wire's Idris Elba plays Heimdall, the all-seeing, all-hearing Asgardian sentry, a casting choice that has stirred much debate. Portman plays Jane Foster, a scientist and Thor's human love interest.

Six minutes of footage was screened at last week's Comic-Con in San Diego, which has now appeared online via ComicBookMovie.com. Check it out in the clip above.

The first thing that strikes me is that Marvel has pursued the CGI route for Asgard. I suppose this was inevitable, given that other films from the studio have followed the same path, with mixed results. Both Jon Favreau's Iron Man films have shown how it is possible to seamlessly integrate computer-generated imagery with live-action footage, but Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk only proved that an angry green giant is a lot less scary when he looks like an extra from World of Warcraft.

Branagh's Asgard, for me, has all the pomp and grandeur of a cheap computer game intro. I'm fully aware that the cost of recreating a real-life Norse heaven, with all those sweeping aerial shots and all that gleaming gold and steel, might have been astronomical. But surely models, or a mixture of models and footage of epic landscapes and real buildings would have been preferable? Even scenes in the interior of Odin's palace seem to have been shot against a green screen background, which must have made it pretty hard for the actors involved to perform at their best. All in all, if this is Branagh's "weird" take, it's looking like the wrong kind of weird.

With that little rant over, the rest of the film looks pretty decent at this early stage. Once again, Agent Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D (first introduced in Iron Man) seems to be woven intelligently into the fabric of the movie, bringing to Thor a nice feel of consanguinity with the earlier film and helping to set things up for The Avengers (which will unite both characters with Captain America). Hemsworth certainly looks the part as Thor, and Hopkins appears to be on bombastic form as Odin.

The main problem with the film, apart from all that ropey CGI, will be convincing audiences that this character can exist, not only in a version of our world, but in the same world as Iron Man, Captain America and the Hulk. When Stan Lee came had the masterstroke of making his next superhero a living, breathing, immortal God, way back in 1962, he didn't have to worry too much about scientific authenticity: no child is going to take a comic book and start picking holes in the fantasy with which he or she has been presented. But in choosing to shoot its back catalogue in live action, Marvel has forced itself into a position where we have to believe in its universe as a tangible, practical reality, even if it is one in which people can fly and gamma rays transform humans into enormous, snarling green versions of Wayne Rooney after a particularly bad England match.

What are your thoughts on Thor? Could this be the first non-Iron Man movie from Marvel to meet the gold standard? And will Branagh bring just enough "weirdness" to this one to make it interesting, or is it already looking like an almighty mess?

Media scrum turns its attention to Hugo, an attractive long-haired collie brought in by Jackie who is thinking about opening an account

Eli Negbi must really, really hate Barclays. He's 57, and has banked with them for 27 years. But it's 8am and he has queued patiently to become the first ever customer of Metro bank at its branch in Holborn, central London. And the reason he's quitting Barclays? Because he hates football.

"They seem to spend all their money on sponsoring things I'm not in the slightest bit interested in, like football. I imagine the board of directors go along to all those football matches sitting in corporate boxes. And I'm paying for it."

Oddly enough the media scrum that has greeted the opening of Metro passes Eli by. He should have brought along his dog. Metro is the first bank not just to allow dogs in branches, but to hand out free doggie biscuits too.

Teams of cameramen and TV reporters are jostling for the big interview: it's with Lucy, a rather attractive chocolate labrador. A dog-fight breaks out, as a press photographer snapping Lucy is shoved aside by a TV crew. Then the scrum moves on to Hugo, an even more attractive long-haired collie, brought in by Jackie who has popped across from her home nearby to think about opening an account.

Meanwhile, Paris Hilton's grandad is standing under TV arc lights, caressing Duffy, a cutesy terrier decked out in Metro-brand blue and red ribbons. Well actually it's not really Paris Hilton's grandad, but Vernon Hill, a slightly camped up version of a stereotype Wall Street banker, who is Metro's founder.

Duffy's behaving rather better than Hugo, who has taken fright by the hubbub and won't sit still for the cameras. Lucy's doing better, but then she's a bit of a ringer. She belongs to Metro chairman Anthony Thompson, but that's not a fact that seems to worry the TV crews.

Perhaps Eli, the first account opener, is a ringer too, although he doesn't much look like a "Lansonette". Lansons is the PR company orchestrating the launch, and it's out in full force. It's the gorilla in the jungle of finance PR, and only seconds after I corner Eli, one of their PRs swoops. "Patrick, you have to put on one of these," she says, planting a press badge on me.

Suspiciously good-looking people

I slope off to interview the new customers now queueing at the door and munching on the free pain-au-chocolats.

Michael Richardson from Finchley is Lanson's PR dream. He's 43, black, handsome and willing to talk to the media about why his existing bank is rubbish and why Metro sounds great.

Michael's currently with Alliance & Leicester but is fed up with their overdraft charges. "The banks have lost their way. It's all changed. In my parent's time, banks were part of the community and understood customers' needs." He's so on-message (he also likes Metro's seven-day opening and late hours) that you wonder, if, just maybe, he works for Lansons. But, no, he's a facilities manager from Finchley. Seconds later, he's being tugged from both sides by camera crews. You'll probably recognise him lunchtime today and on TV reports tonight.

Over at the shiny silver safety-deposit boxes, an almost unfeasibly good-looking young woman is depositing her jewels. She even tells me her box number. She's bagged 888. Surely, she works for Lansons.

No, her name is Manpreet Banwait and she only arrived in London three weeks ago from Aarhus in Denmark. She's living in Hounslow and thinks that maybe that's not the best place to leave her valuables. And this is her first British bank account. She's been in to HSBC and NatWest "but I didn't like the staff in there. I'm also working quite long hours and I like the idea of somewhere that's open until later in the evening."

Another Lansons PR grabs me. I must, she says, speak to her client, Kevin Mountford. No, he doesn't work for Metro but for another Lansons account, moneysupermarket.com, and he wants to give his opinion on Metro's products. This is the perfectly packaged PR exercise.

But instead we talk about dogs. "I can't quite see how they are going to like it if a Staffordshire bull terrier is running amok in the branch," he says. "When all the glitz disappears, will Metro live up to its promises? The products aren't exactly best buy, but at least it's more competition for the other banks. With banks today you can have service or price. It's a shame you can't have both."

But PR can be a dirty business, and someone's about to rain on Lansons' parade. "Hi Patrick. It's all a bit trashy, isn't," says Vanessa* as she sidles up alongside me. She's head of retail press at one of the big four banks and ? along with some of her staff ? is mingling in the media hubbub. Lansons evidently haven't spotted her yet. "I love all that stuff they say about 'we'll put an end to the stupid rules' of banking. What, like money laundering, for example? You should come back here at 3.30 on a Tuesday afternoon. It's the quietest time of the week in retail. It'll be like tumbleweed in here."

But it's now coming up to 9am, and the early queue has disappeared. Of the six tellers, two are unoccupied. I count the numbers in the branch. In total there's 130 or so people milling around. And about 20 of them look like genuine members of the public. Nor have I seen anyone using the Metro cash machines in the lobby yet. I leave the branch and cross the road to catch the tube. Outside the Sainsbury's, there's a long queue of people waiting to get cash from an ATM. I almost walk up to them to say the cash machines across there are all available. But, hey, I don't want to do Metro's PR for them. Do I?

* not her real name

There is a chance build on the rubble of the Senate's failure to cap carbon emissions, says Eric Pooley

Following the rocky path of climate legislation in the U.S. Congress these past years brought me back to the 1980s, and my time as a crime reporter in New York City. After a shooting in those days, a homicide detective named Marty Davin would go to the hospital and intercept the gunshot victim on a gurney outside the emergency room. If the victim was conscious, Davin would lean over and ask, "Who killed you?"

That usually got the victim's attention, along with an I'm-not-dead-yet protest. Davin would reply, "You are going to die. You might as well tell me who did it."

As I interviewed the sponsor of whichever emissions-reduction bill had just been gunned down, I often thought of Davin. The politicians and climate campaigners would assure me that they were still alive ? passage of a carbon cap was inevitable, they'd say ? and I'd remind myself that they had survived countless near-death experiences.

But what happened last week, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he would not even try to bring a compromise climate bill to the Senate floor, was not just another setback. Sometimes dead really is dead ? and for this Congress, barring a miracle, climate action is finished. With an ugly election looming in November, it may be years before we get another chance to debate a bill that prices carbon. And the consensus approach to federal climate action ? the idea that cap-and-trade was the most politically viable policy ? may well be dead, too.

This is a time to take stock. The first question is whether this was a failure of policy; a failure of politics, message, and messenger; or both? Second, is there a Plan B around which the climate campaign should now unify? And third, what needs to be done to allow a better outcome when the next opportunity finally does appear?

No one who follows climate politics could have been very surprised by Reid's move. The bigger shock was his decision to remove from the bill a mandate that utilities must generate 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. (Proponents hope to offer it as a floor amendment.) It was if the Senate was saying: Anything remotely effective, we're not going to do.

When Reid pulled the plug, I thought back to a snowy afternoon in Copenhagen last December. Sitting with Al Gore in an empty hotel café, I asked him to contemplate this very moment. "If the United States doesn't act," he replied, "if the Senate defeats the legislation or waters it down to a point where it is not even worth having a bill, that is an event horizon beyond which it is difficult to see."

He parsed the same issues then that climate campaigners are parsing now: "It may mean there is a fundamental flaw in the international political approach, but I'm not sure there is a good alternative. The reality is so dire that a new plan would have to emerge ? but just now I can't imagine what it would be."

Gore had a point. When the goal is emissions reduction, there aren't many alternatives: You've got to reduce emissions. The Plan B options now being offered by various advocates should be vigorously debated, but all of them seem vulnerable to the same polluted politics that killed the cap. Advocates of the carbon tax are ready to take a run at their goal, and Godspeed ? but it is hard to see how politicians who were terrified to support a cap (because opponents labeled it a tax) will suddenly become bold enough to support a carbon tax. Policy groups such as the Breakthrough Institute argue that instead of making dirty fuels more expensive, it's time for intensive energy research and development to make clean fuels cheaper. That sounds reasonable, but without the revenue stream that a cap or tax would provide ? and in an era of budget cutbacks ? it is hard to see government supplying the massive, long-term funding their plan requires.

Is the cap so fundamentally flawed that it should be abandoned forever? I don't think so. I believe it needs to be liberated from legislative bloat and rehabilitated as a modest first step: a tool for regulating power sector emissions, the job it performed so successfully in the 1990s, when America tamed acid rain. It's worth remembering that while climate politics were bogging down, climate policy mechanisms were being improved. Clever wonks found ways to cushion consumers and high-carbon industries from the price impact of the cap, while preserving a price signal for generators. Trading restrictions were added to keep speculators out of the carbon game. Though the term cap-and-trade has been demonized, the cap itself isn't broken.

Some will argue that this latest setback is proof that the U.S. will never cap carbon. I reject that view. All we can say for sure is that the U.S. will never cap or price carbon until the politics of the issue change ? so the first order of business must be to begin improving the political atmosphere. During the three years I worked on The Climate War, a narrative of the campaign to pass a carbon cap, I came to realize I was writing a political thriller, a whodunit with multiple culprits. Let's look for lessons by considering some of the culprits, starting with the most obvious.

1. The Professional Deniers. Gore and environmental leaders made a tactical error several years ago when they declared the science "settled" and refused to engage the forces of denial and delay. The basic science was indeed settled, but the resulting message vacuum was the perfect medium for those who sow doubt and confusion about global climate change. It shouldn't be surprising that so many Americans remain skeptical about global warming. For 20 years, this loose network of PR pros, working for industry associations and anti-tax think tanks, has spread doubt about climate science and fear about climate economics, claiming that any attempt to cap CO2 would wreck the American economy. Their disinformation, amplified via the Internet, helped poison the debate. To counter the deniers' campaign, President Obama needs to speak out forcefully, and champions of the clean energy economy must point to the new jobs that are already being created by the renewable energy economy and show Americans precisely where they fit into it.

2. Senate Republicans. Most climate campaigners understand the folly of trying to remake the American energy system without bipartisan support. But it's hard to forge centrist solutions when an entire party is denying there's a problem and vilifying the solutions. A scaled-back approach, one that can be sold as a modest, incremental step and not a new industrial revolution, might fare better.

There was a time ? 2007 and 2008, to be precise ? when some Republicans were moving away from deny-and-delay tactics. (In 2007, briefly, Newt Gingrich supported the carbon cap.) More recently, opposition to climate action has become a litmus test in the GOP. Arizona

It's hard to forge centrist solutions when an entire party is denying there's a problem.

Republican John McCain, who sponsored the Senate's first serious climate bills but now faces a primary challenge from the right, recently called a successor bill "a farce." His mantle of Republican climate courage passed to Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who took so much heat from his own party that he withdrew from the climate bill he helped write. Graham's position has been incoherent since then, but he has signaled support for a cap on the power sector. That could be something to build on.

3. Senate Democrats. After Reid pulled the plug, Democrats were quick to blame Republicans for obstruction. But what about the obstructionists within the Democratic ranks? Harry Reid didn't have the clout to force action on this issue because a dozen or more centrist Democrats ? from states that either mine coal or produce much of their electricity from it ? were dug in against it. It is impossible to tell if the senators were truly concerned about what the cap would do to their state economies ? nonpartisan studies suggest its impact would be minimal ? or just worried about what attack ads would do to them. Again, a more modest first step could change the dynamic. The crucial thing is to get started.

4. The Green Group. At a meeting in February 2007, the Green Group, an unofficial association of the leaders of the big U.S. environmental non-profits, told Harry Reid they supported a single legislative goal: An economy-wide cap. Their strategy was to assemble the broadest possible coalition to push the broadest possible bill. Given the magnitude of the crisis and the need to reduce emissions quickly, this made sense. Politically, though, it proved disastrous, because it led to bills of such cost, scope, and complexity that they scared the pants off timid legislators.

The Green Group held out for an economy-wide bill even after it became clear, in late 2009, that it was unachievable in the Senate. Only recently did

The Green Group wanted too much and ended up with nothing.

environmental leaders try to negotiate a compromise cap on electric power plants, which account for 40 percent of U.S. emissions. Passing a utility cap would have been a great first step, but the talks got started too late. The Green Group wanted too much and ended up with nothing.

5. The Power Barons. When the eleventh-hour search for a compromise began, the utilities got too greedy. If they had to go it alone, they argued, they deserved virtually all of the carbon allowances in the program for free. This left too few for other crucial purposes, such as cushioning manufacturers from higher electricity prices. Worse, in exchange for supporting a carbon cap, some utilities demanded relief from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations governing conventional pollutants such as mercury. Like the greens, they asked for too much and got nothing. (The greens, however, were overreaching on behalf of the planet, not their own coffers.) Some utility bosses were relieved to see the bill die. Those feelings may prove short-lived as the battle to reduce emissions moves to the EPA and the courts.

Some advocates, such as Lee Wasserman of the Rockefeller Family Fund, regard the decision to negotiate with the power barons as the height of folly. Washington, they argue, should simply dictate the terms of surrender to the polluters. Such a stance ignores an important fact: It isn't possible to remake the U.S. energy system without negotiating with the power barons. Punishing generators means punishing households that pay electricity bills. That doesn't mean, however, that the politicians should give the barons everything they want. But there was only one player with the clout to cut a fair deal with them, and he was missing in action.

6. The President. Barack Obama chose not to lead on this issue. His decision to address health care reform before energy and climate change doomed the latter. With advisors Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod whispering that climate was a losing proposition (a self-fulfilling prophesy, to be sure), Obama never threw himself behind a particular climate bill. He left it to the Senate, the Green Group, and the power bosses ? all of whom were sorely in need of adult supervision.

The real grownups in this tale were Rep. Henry Waxman and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who last year surprised the Obama Administration by taking a comprehensive climate bill to the House floor. The White House had no choice but to help whip the vote, and it passed. Then Obama stopped trying, and the Senate refused to take up the legislation. It was a colossal failure of nerve, and a decision that likely destroyed any chance of achieving climate action in Obama's first term.

Since the president and his political advisers thought an economy-wide cap was too heavy a lift, Obama should have led a tactical retreat to what, in the past several months, became the last-ditch compromise position: the cap on the electric power sector. Had negotiations focused on this months ago instead of weeks ago, and had the president thrown his weight behind it then, we might today be celebrating a step forward instead of mourning another failure. Only Obama had the authority to call this audible early. The environmental NGOs and their allies were too invested in the economy-wide approach; they needed Obama to lead them.

He refused. To the bitter end, the White House pursued what his aides called a "stealth strategy" that deployed the president only sparingly. As a result, he failed to take advantage of the BP oil spill. When its terrible scope became apparent, in June, Obama began talking about the need to

Welcome to the 'glorious mess' ? the tangle of regulation and litigation that follow when Congress fails to act.

cap carbon and accelerate the transition to clean energy. But it was a fleeting moment. Many climate campaigners knew the climate bill was dead on June 15, when Obama gave his long-awaited Oval Office address on the oil spill. Instead of making an explicit connection to the climate bill ? and explaining that by capping carbon the U.S. could speed its transition to clean energy and help break its addiction to fossil fuels ? Obama whiffed. He had a road map but didn't try to share it with the people. "We don't yet know precisely how we're going to get there," he said. Today, with that map in shreds, we surely don't.

As climate campaigners wait however long it takes to get another shot at legislation, there is important work to be done. Greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. have been dropping ? and not just because of the recession. The task is to build on this trend during the economic recovery. Changes in our energy infrastructure are making this possible. In Texas, our highest-emitting state and a bastion of climate skepticism, carbon emissions have been declining since 2004 thanks in part to a renewable energy standard ? signed into law by then-Gov. George W. Bush ? that accelerated the installation of wind power and created thousands of jobs along the way.

The Department of Energy now has 7,000 clean energy projects across the country ? projects that save money, create jobs, and reduce emissions. According to an analysis by the World Resources Institute, by leveraging existing authority over the next ten years the U.S. could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent to 12 percent below 2005 levels. This is far short of the 17 percent reduction Obama promised in Copenhagen and nothing close to what needs to be done. But if we continue cutting emissions before asking voters to embrace a cap, we prove that cuts are both technologically feasible and economically sustainable. And we'll be in a better position when the next legislative opportunity comes.

Until then, the climate war will be waged by cities, states, regional cap-and-trade programs, and, above all, the EPA, which early next year is set to begin regulating stationary sources of CO2 ? power plants and large factories.

Welcome to the "glorious mess" ? Michigan Rep. John Dingell's phrase for the tangle of regulation and litigation that will follow when Congress fails to act. We are about to experience precisely the sort of costly, protracted, plant-by-plant trench warfare the cap was intended to avoid. Since the utilities and the manufacturers weren't willing to cut a deal, this is what they get. The fragile period of compromise and cooperation between environmentalists and big business may now be coming to an end. Green groups that have invested time and money into the legislative process are now putting on their war paint and returning to the courts, with a renewed focus on stopping new coal-fired power plants and shutting down the oldest and dirtiest ones.

Tough new EPA rules for conventional pollutants will help, and so will new EPA carbon regulations. Perhaps these strict new regulations will refresh the power bosses' appetite for a cap. But they have plenty of lawyers, and the long, ugly battles over implementation of EPA regulations could extend the current period of uncertainty by many years. Republicans (and some Democrats) will try to strip EPA of its authority over carbon, or at least delay implementation of its new rules.

In effect, the Senate will be saying that Congress alone should have the power to act ? so that it can then not exercise that power. Obama's aides say the president will be fully engaged in the battle to save EPA authority over carbon. It is a fight that he can't possibly duck, because it is our last line of defense. As Gore reminded me in Copenhagen, "The fact that this is extremely hard doesn't mean we should quit."

Labour didn't solve antisocial behaviour, but its measures did cut crime. The Tories' decision to scrap asbos will see it rise again

The public's collective memory doesn't operate in political cycles. They remember when burnt-out cars were ubiquitous, when communities were terrorised during, before and after bonfire night by the misuse of fireworks. Londoners remember the rough sleepers on our stations and shop doorways, and everyone remembers that crimes were too many and police officers too few.

Antisocial behaviour was described as low-level nuisance. The police and local authorities had few powers and no combined structures to deal with it. The police didn't even have the power to take truants back to school.

This was the country we inherited in 1997. We didn't solve every problem and, as I stated last year, there was a period when we put antisocial behaviour on cruise control because of other priorities following the 7 July London attacks, but we did an enormous amount to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour, and any but the most ungracious and mean-spirited government would recognise that.

Cue the home secretary's speech this week on asbos. She set out the scourge of antisocial behaviour exactly as I would. She even nicked my mantra ? ASB needs to be tackled not tolerated. But she went on to give the most bizarre and distorted picture of what's happened over the last 13 years.

Let's get the myths out of the way first. We introduced a range of civil powers for the police, local authorities and other agencies to use in a co-ordinated way to tackle the kind of behaviour that, while falling short of criminality, destroys people's lives.

They were not driven from Whitehall, as May suggests, but were pursued through the crime and disorder reduction partnerships established locally, involving community groups and social enterprises as well as the police and local authorities.

Very often, where the ASB is caused by someone under 18, a letter or visit to the parents by the police solves the problem.

Where more co-ordinated action is necessary, parenting orders and acceptable behaviour contracts (ABCs) have proved their worth. Family intervention projects ensure that all aspects of a dysfunctional family's behaviour are addressed in two years of intense support and intervention.

An asbo is the most serious civil power. Lasting for a minimum of two years, it sets out a list of conditions, the breach of which is a criminal offence, with a maximum of five years' imprisonment.

Yes, they are breached. Unsurprising given the previous behaviour of those who are on them, but the success rate is good and the problem of breaching needs to be addressed through driving up the low level of prosecutions when this happens, not by abandoning asbos.

Theresa May said that for 13 years people had been told "that the asbo was the silver bullet that would cure society's ills". Who said that? When?

What the National Audit Office and the Audit Commission actually said is that our approach to ASB worked, with 65% of the NAO's review sample desisting after the first intervention and 93% after the third.

More needs to be done, particularly in speeding up the process and empowering citizens to take out legal injunctions. But the most surprising thing about May's speech, in among all the platitudes, was the failure to acknowledge any success at all. Indeed, she resorts to disingenuousness when she says that ASB has become more frequent.

On 15 July her department published the statistics. It said: "The current proportion of people who had a high level of perceived ASB is the lowest since the measure was introduced in the survey in 2001/2 ? In previous years reduction [with problems with abandoned or burnt-out cars] was largely responsible for driving falls in the composite measure. However, the reduction in the overall measure of ASB between 2008/09 and 2009/10 reflects falls in the proportion of people perceiving a problem with almost all strands of ASB."

Getting rid of asbos would be entirely consistent with the usual Tory approach to crime and disorder. It's called laissez-faire and it will soon be reflected in the other thing that comes with Tory governments ? it's called rising crime.

Amazon hopes the redesigned, lighter Kindles and new store will be the 'tipping point' in the UK e-reader market

Amazon unveiled two lighter, more advanced versions of the Kindle e-reader today, alongside a new UK ebook store that it claimed will send sales of the device soaring in Britain.

Faced with growing competition in the e-reader market, Amazon has redesigned the device and has made it available directly from its UK site for the first time.

In another change, Amazon also announced that the new Kindle will be available with just Wi-Fi connectivity, rather than using a 3G mobile connection to download electronic books.

Steve Kessel, the vice president of Kindle, told guardian.co.uk that the new versions were a significant advance that should see many more people buying the device, although he declined to give sales targets.

According to Amazon the new Kindle has 50% better contrast than previous models. It is 21% smaller and 15% lighter ? weighing less than 250 grams ? and like other models it has a six-inch screen. Its battery will now last for a month on a single charge if the wireless connectivity is switched off, and the capacity has been doubled to allow users to hold up to 3,500 books at any one time.

The Wi-Fi model will cost £109 ($170 at today's exchange rate) in the UK, while the same product will be on sale for $139 to US shoppers. The version that supports both 3G ? over Vodafone's network ? and Wi-Fi will cost £149 ($232) in the UK, but is priced at $189 in America.

"We think that the combination of the £109 and £149 Kindles, and the UK book store, mean this will be a tipping point in the UK," said Kessel.

The new UK e-book store will run on Amazon.co.uk, and include 400,000 books including titles by a wide range of writers including Stephenie Meyer, John Grisham, Stephen King and Stieg Larsson ? author of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo ? who yesterday became the first writer to sell 1m ebooks through Amazon. It will also offer digital versions of newspapers and magazines.

"The new UK Kindle store will offer the largest selection of the books in the market, at the lowest prices," Kessel pledged.

He denied that Amazon had been rushed into launching a new Kindle because of the early success of Apple's iPad tablet computer, insisting that the two products served different markets.

"This has been in the works for a while ? Since the iPad launched, sales of the Kindle have accelerated."

Amazon said that Kindle has been its best-selling item for the last two years but remains cagey about exactly many it has sold, with Kessel saying that "millions" had been bought. The company recently cut the US price of Kindle from $259 to $189.

Previously UK shoppers could order a Kindle from Amazon.com, but had to pay shipping charges and other fees on top of the official price.

Rumours that a new Kindle was imminent took off yesterday, after an 'out of stock' sign went up on Amazon.com's Kindle page. The company is accepting pre-orders for these new models from today, and plans to start delivering on 27 August.

Amazon launched the original Kindle in the US in November 2007, and followed up with the Kindle 2 and then the Kindle DX. It said that today's new model would not be marketed as the Kindle 3, and would instead be known either as Kindle or "Kindle Latest Generation".

Many other manufacturers now offer their own ebook readers. Barnes & Noble sells the Nook at $199 in the US, with a Wi-Fi only version for $149. Borders Group offers the Kobo e-Reader for $149, while the Sony Reader Daily Edition costs $250.

Stone tools, flakes and the remains of a final feast at the site in Wiltshire hint that the huge sarsens that now stand at Stonehenge were brought to Marden Henge first

View an interactive guide to the site

The last revellers seem to have cleared up scrupulously after the final party at Marden Henge some 4,500 years ago.

They scoured the rectangular building and the smart white chalk platform on top of the earth bank, with its spectacular view towards the river Avon in one direction, and the hills from which the giant sarsen stones were brought to Stonehenge in the other.

All traces of the feast ? the pig bones, the ashes and the burnt stones from the barbecue that cooked them, the broken pots and bowls ? were swept neatly into a dump to one side. A few precious offerings, including an exquisitely worked flint arrowhead, were carefully laid on the clean chalk. Then they covered the whole surface with a thin layer of clay, stamped it flat, and left. Forever.

In the past fortnight, English Heritage archaeologists have peeled back the thin layer of turf covering the site, which has somehow escaped being ploughed for more than 4,000 years. They were astounded to find the undisturbed original surface just as the prehistoric Britons left it.

"We're gobsmacked really," said site director Jim Leary.

Giles Woodhouse, a volunteer digger who must return next week to his day job as a lieutenant colonel in the army bound for Germany and then Afghanistan, has been crouched over the rubbish dump day after day, his black labrador Padma sighing at his side. He has been teasing the soil away from bone, stone and pottery so perfectly preserved it could have been buried last year.

"It gives one a bit of a shiver down the backbone to realise the last man to touch these died 4,500 years ago," he said. His finds, still emerging from the soil, will rewrite the history of the site.

Marden in Wiltshire has been puzzling archaeologists for centuries. It is set almost exactly half way between two of the most famous and tourist-choked sites in Britain, Stonehenge and Avebury, but it is far larger than either. The ragged oval of outer earth banks at Marden, completed by a bend of the Avon, enclose more than 14 hectares, compared with 11.5 hectares at Avebury, where the banks surround an entire modern village.

Famously ? to its comparatively few devotees and visitors, that is ? it is the biggest henge in Britain that isn't there, surrounding one of the biggest artificial hills in Britain, which isn't there either.

This is the first excavation since Geoffrey Wainwright, former chief archaeologist at English Heritage, explored one small corner of the site in 1969. What stunned the archaeologists when they started work three weeks ago was just how much is left.

Once your eye is in you can see it: the sweep of the ditches, the belt of trees hiding some of the earth bank, which still rises to three metres in some places, the stain in the grass marking the lost barrow and its massive surrounding moat, and the wholly unexpected discovery ? the second, smaller henge, so close to the modern houses that the roots of two trees at the foot of a back garden are actually growing into its bank.

The neolithic buildings were not where others have looked for them, on the level in the centre of the henges, but on top of the bank.

"We've all been looking in the wrong place," Leary said, "there will have to be a major rethink about other henges. And it's actually almost terrifying how close to the surface the finds were ? there's also going to have to be a major review of our management plans for other sites."

The only known image of Hatfield Barrow ? an early 18th century map in the archives of the landowner, Corpus Christi College in Oxford ? shows the artificial hill as a jaunty little sandcastle sporting a cockade of trees. It once rose to a height of almost 15 metres, half the height of Silbury near Avebury.

The two antiquarians who burrowed like rabbits through scores of Wiltshire earthworks in the early 19th century, Sir Richard Colt Hoare and William Cunnington, punched a massive shaft through Hatfield Barrow in 1807. Their scrappy records torment the modern archaeologists, including references to animal bones, burned wood, and "two small parcels of burned human bones".

They left the shaft open, possibly intending to return in another season, and the mound collapsed. This is a phenomenon Leary knows well, having led the rescue excavation before the engineering works to stabilise Silbury, which was also left riddled with slowly collapsing holes by Georgian and later diggers.

The farmer at Marden filled in the moat, which an 18th century naturalist recorded as fed by a natural spring and never dry even in the hottest summer, and sold the collapsed hillock as top soil. Leary's massive trench has uncovered barely a trace of hill or moat.

If the hill disappointed, the excavations at one of the original entrances and at the small henge certainly do not. They are revealing what appears to be a broad gravelled ceremonial road leading towards the river. Discovering undisturbed neolithic surfaces and building platforms on this scale counts as a discovery of international importance.

There is no evidence of permanent occupation of the dwellings or the site as a whole. As in the work led by Professor Mike Parker Pearson at Durrington Walls, 20 miles away (he couldn't resist coming over to help dig, and some of his former students had the pleasure of giving him orders) the implication is of people gathering for seasonal rituals and feasting, and maybe a work camp.

"A completely artificial division has been made in the past between domestic and religious, recreation and ritual," Leary said. "We're going to have to rethink all that. It's not one thing or the other, it's everything mixed in together."

If it wasn't a village, or a temple, or a farm, or a cemetery, what was Marden for? Leary suspects the answer may be emerging in stone working tools, and flakes of sarsen, turning up all over the site. If you were going to drag sarsens the size of double decker buses from their original site to Stonehenge, he said, the obvious route is straight through a natural gap in the hilly landscape, which would take them through Marden.

The evidence that Marden was a sort of builder's yard for the most famous prehistoric monument in the world may have been in the mud under the boots of Leary's puzzled predecessors.

So why did the site's temporary occupants leave? Maybe with Stonehenge complete, the sarsens shaped into the giant trilithons that still fill the hordes of modern visitors with awe, their job was done. They tidied up nicely, turned out the lights, and left.

Motorists frequently ignore protected bike zones at junctions. Even the police give out mixed messages about whether they are breaking the law

A couple of days ago I blogged about my encounter with an Addison Lee minicab driver who drove into the protected bike zone at a red traffic light.

This happens frustratingly frequently and is clearly contrary to the Highway Code. (Point 178 states: "Motorists, including motorcyclists, MUST stop at the first white line reached if the lights are amber or red".) But is it actually illegal? And if so what penalties do drivers face?

When I started looking into this, the answer turned out to be surprisingly contradictory. Peter Walker touched on the in a previous blog in which he asked the police why they apparently turn a blind eye to the offence:

Booking cars which enter the zone is tricky, [PC James] Aveling says, as it's not illegal if they stop in one if a light turns red as they're part-way in. Officers thus have to watch a driver creep in on an already red light. There are also rumours that some officers see the penalty for the infringement ? six points on the licence the same as you'd get for sailing all the way through the red light ? as somewhat disproportionate.

So the offence comes under failure to stop at a red light.

Not so, says bike blog reader Nick Lane, who emailed us about another blog that mentioned the issue:

Cycle stop boxes are NOT legally enforceable, no points of fines can be levied against a vehicle entering or using one. Therefore they are NOT illegal.

In 2004 I had a lengthy correspondence with a chief inspector of road policy policing in which I queried why officers were not fining or awarding penalty points to motorists who compromised [advanced stop line] boxes. His reply on each occasion was emphatic - it is not an offence and therefore they cannot take action. He advised that I should not interpret the Highway Code as a set of laws attached to which were penalties, but rather as a set of guidelines.

Can that really be true? What is the point of saying in the Highway Code that drivers "MUST" not do something if there is no sanction for transgression? If that is correct, it's no wonder so many people do it.

The preface to the Highway Code suggests that the chief inspector is wrong. It states:

Many of the rules in the code are legal requirements, and if you disobey these rules you are committing a criminal offence. You may be fined, given penalty points on your licence or be disqualified from driving. In the most serious cases you may be sent to prison. Such rules are identified by the use of the words 'MUST/MUST NOT'.

For chapter and verse on the subject I called the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) (they ought to know, right?). After a day on the case, the press officer got back to me to say that nobody at ACPO knew the answer. She suggested I contact the Department for Transport (DfT). So I did.

At last some clarity. The DfT said that driving into a bike zone when the lights are red is an offence. It carries a £60 penalty and three points on your driving licence (maximum £1,000 fine if it goes to court). Police have some discretion over which bit of the Road Traffic Act to use, but most likely it will fall under "Failure to comply with a traffic sign or road marking".

So driving into a bike zone when the lights are red is illegal. Although there is apparently a great deal of confusion among the police themselves. One thing is for sure. Booking drivers for this offence is not a priority.