In the city of Birmingham, starting with a grey day on Wednesday, Australia were made to shut up, having put up a performance that could best be called an embarrasment, hoping all along for one better day, but being destroyed in our house, the house of fun, our fans braving the sun and the rain, and with England going one step beyond the Aussies in the test race. They may think that tomorrow’s just another day, but Australia were riding the ghost train in this match, and although my girl is happy there’s no play this weekend, there’s a suspicion that the visitors may be yesterday’s men.

Yes, it was madness alright. I’ve seen some daft tests in my time, but this one is up there. Where do we go from here? I would fancy Australia to come back strong again, but just like after Cardiff, there are major distress signals. The captain is in appalling form (hey ho, we know that feeling) and you have to wonder why the Mitches are so damn inconsistent. Meanwhile, England are weathering one opener having a Weston, while finding enough from their line-up to eke out the runs when needed. This is a 2009-type series, lacking in consistent quality, but with enough to keep the fans engaged.

TLG was there today, so I’m not going to cut across his piece over the weekend, but this was sheer lunacy. Like Michael Caine in Jaws 4 madness.

OK, I mailed that one in, but that’s the effect this series is having on me.

I thought, while I was here, that I’d offer a little comment on the furore on The Full Toss over Maxie’s inclusion of the picture with Cook and a dead deer. I saw that picture a year ago (for the first time) and it filled with me revulsion. It looks like someone pleased to have killed a junior deer, posing with the gun etc, and smiling. I’m sorry, that really doesn’t float my boat, and yes, at a time when I was being told what a lovely guy he is at regular intervals, as against you-know-who, I thought it was hypocrisy. But I didn’t add it on to a post. I’m one of those that doesn’t like seeing pictures of dead animals on my Twitter or Facebook timelines. They horrify me, and in the same way I don’t watch horror movies, I would love not to see them. So for me to put it on here would be something I wouldn’t want me to see. But I’m not criticising TFT for putting the picture up.

What some of the malcontents, and yes Nash again proves that stupidity and wild accusations are her watchwords, don’t realise is that bloggers put in massive efforts to bring the blogs to you (she asserts that TFT does “shock”  for money – she’s as off beam about that as she was about my motivations when she snitched to Steve James a few weeks back). You’ve seen the sheer volume TLG and I have put up in the past few months, and what I did at HDWLIA. We do it, well I do, because I enjoy it. I love it (most of the time).

I have never questioned the people who disagree with me’s passion for the sport. You know I’ve told you that many times. I therefore don’t think it is right to be accused of some of the crap I’ve been over the last year or so, and the sort of stuff flying about our motivations, our secret agenda, our cultish, yes cultish, tendencies. I’m not Uncle Sam….

The people moaning that Maxie’s post is clickbait, then going on to the site to say how horrified they are, and then replying to those who say they disagree is about as daft as it gets if you genuinely, moronically, think it’s clickbait. You fools.

I get so angry when our commitment and our love of the sport is questioned. We, like those who oppose my view, are entitled to them. I’ve been privileged to meet Maxie and TLG, and would love to share a beer with many more of you one day, but I’m pleased there’s a community here, and if you think I stray off line, you’ll tell me, and I will always consider it carefully. But as I put on the comments on there, if the main driver of writing a blog is to write for others, then you lose the thing that got people there in the purpose. You have to be you. Maxie was, in short, being Maxie. If people don’t like it, they don’t have to read it.

Edit:  TLG here – just adding my wholehearted agreement with Dmitri on the above.  We write what we think, not for other people.  Dmitri and I write differently, and have different perspectives.  Maxie does exactly the same and read him on that basis.