Tea in the hallowed grounds

As dreams of winning the Ashes became, well, the only word is ash, for 4-0 is not a number even I would minimise, there is a place — a restaurant actually — where you can hold the Ashes in your hands. Calm down. What, as I imagine myself telling Chris Grayling all the time, would your cardiologist say? They may not be the real Ashes — the person looking after them was vague, like a parent telling a child that Father Christmas would probably come down the chimney on Christmas Eve, they couldn’t really say, but it’s quite likely. This restaurant is the Long Room at Lord’s Cricket Ground, the home of Maryle-bone Cricket Club. I don’t have a sport — just arguing — but if I make mistakes, please write in like angry birds. It will cheer you up. Throw a ball at me, made of words.

I always saw Lord’s, which was opposite my synagogue — the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, which has two lady rabbis and is, to the orthodox, about as Jewish as a pet shop — as a friendly alien space, with an alien ship (the press centre, which looks like a squashed golf ball in the sky) atop its mystery.