APOLOGIES if this seems a little rushed.

I have had to attend a parish council event this morning to celebrate the erection of a new street lamp outside my house.

It doesn't work - but that is not the point.

It is not often our parish has something to shout about and every resident was expected, almost ordered, to attend.

After all, the local pub landlord was performing the unveiling ceremony and I did get to shake his hand.

Having hot-footed it back to the office, I was quite relieved that I had only missed a handful of deadlines.

My editor did not see it that way.

In fact he seemed quite angry - shouting about priorities, loyalty, punctuality, P45s.

He seemed quite bemused when I illustrated my argument with a recent example from the world of sport.

The England World Cup squad were invited to Buckingham Palace yesterday, presumably to celebrate the emergence of Zimbabwe as a major cricketing force.

Clearly, Liz was gagging to down a couple of pints with Ian Austin and the other two Lancashire lads as the players' overlords, the mighty English Cricket Board, insisted that all players miss four days of cricket for Lancashire, the players' employers. Now, I know that the ECB is high and mighty, but even they could not have ordered the weather to delay the start at Bristol and allow all three to be available for selection today.

Had the rain not intervened, the concept that Austin, Andrew Flintoff and Neil Fairbrother, were expected to miss a crucial county game simply beggared belief.

Maybe David Graveney, the chairman of selectors, and his chums were keen to enhance their chances of millennium gongs.

(That could only be matched for inappropriateness if Alex Ferguson was knighted.)

Whatever the hidden agenda of the ECB, Lancashire were silently fuming at their decision.

And I think that is what bemused my editor.

For he insisted that, had he known about the parish ceremony, he would have put his foot down and told the parish council where to go.

It gave me quite a warm glow, I can tell you, that he valued my morning's work so highly.

I wonder, then, how those Lancashire players are feeling today.

There are times when the county must stand up to the ECB on points of principle.

The Premier League fiasco has continually illustrated that Lancashire are putty in the hands of the ECB.

And the consequence is that the overwhelming incompetence of the ECB is allowed to proceed unchecked.

Expect Mick Jagger to be appointed the new England coach.

Neil Bramwell is the Sports Editor

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.