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20.7.09

London Tonight Tonight

Dear One and All -

So, let's get the sports news out of the way. Hurrah and double well done to England's cricketers who have just won the Second test against the Australians - their first Lord's test victory over the men in green caps since 1934.

I'm just going to pause for a moment - so should you - so we can all savour that...

Still pausing.

Done. Not that we're gloating - that's a very unattractive past time. But it's not a bad thing to enjoy the finer things in life. And breaking a 75-year-old duck seems pretty fine to me. What's more - the opposition are no slouches, and there are still three tests to go. Let's face it, we could soon be licking our wounds.

And talking of licking wounds. Hats off and double respect to Mr Tom Watson. What a golf legend. What a shame that the impossible dream proved just that. Not least because someone sitting not too far from where I'm sitting now had a small wager on his being crowned Open Champion for the sixth time. Ah well, he can hold his head up high. As can the eventual winner, Mr Cink.

Now - onto the programme - and there's a commonly accepted understanding that if something looks to0 good to be true, it is too good to be true. Today, there are a lot of people who've been ruing the day they were tempted to invest an awful lot of money in a scheme which seemed to offer wonderful returns only to find out that it was a great big con. The victims include the rich and famous as well as just the rich. It sounds ominously like the Bernie Madoff scheme across the pond. He's now in prison - and will be for a very long time.

Our thoughts go out to the family of Henry Surtees this evening. You may have heard of his rather talented dad, John. He's the only man ever to have been crowned world motorbike champion and Formula One champion. He now lives in Surrey. Well, his son, Henry, died yesterday - striving to follow in his father's footsteps. He died after he was involved in an accident in a Formula Two race at Brands Hatch yesterday.

There's a strong family theme in another of our stories tonight - a mum claims she's been banned from school after she told another little boy to stop bullying her son. Was she right? Was she wrong?

And from one school report to another (this is going terribly well, isn't it?). It's a sort of 'animals took over the zoo' story - with the 11 year old pupils at a school in Southwark. We can imagine what could go wrong... At the time of writing, I have no idea whether it did.

Sorry to say there's more on swine flu tonight and we're looking at its impact on the international travel scene. It's summer holiday time after all - schools breaking up for the long break but lots of pupils are finding that the great getaway isn't really happening. Or if they've got away, they can't get back home again - that's what's happened to a number of London children in Beijing. They've been quarantined in a hotel over there. While other kids from Esher, a football team, have been told their dream trip to a tournament in South Korea has just been cancelled - in case they take the virus with them. It seems London isn't just the national hotspot for the virus - it's got a world-wide reputation too.

Oh, and there's a story about a rather unhappy Winston Churchill.

We'll all find out more in the programme.

See you at six,

Ben & Alex.