All a-Twitter
Here at The Circus we're a sucker for whizz-bang new technology, especially if it comes with a persuasive and immensely plausible advertising campaign. And so it was that we sat in front of the telly last night forlornly waiting for the Edgbaston Test to begin, wearing our Snuggie – otherwise known as a dressing gown worn backwards – and occasionally disappearing into the bathroom to deal with baked-on soap scum and mould with Easy-off Bam, which was made nigh effortless by using a ShamWow, and also having a bit of an all-over with the Aspray. You can't be too careful, especially inside a Snuggie.

Maybe it's the lack of a persuasive and immensely plausible advertising campaign, but we hate Twitter. And just to annoy us, last night any question about whether Phillip Hughes had been omitted from the Australian team for the Edgbaston Test was answered not by the selectors, the coach, the skipper or that nice Stuart MacGill, but by the opener himself when he did a tweet. "I am disappointed not to be on the field with the lads today," he twalloped. "I will be supporting the guys, it's a BIG Test match 4 us. Thanks 4 all the support!"

Unless and until they get the ShamWow guy to do an ad, we'll continue our campaign against the social evil that is Twitter. Or unless and until we're threatened with legal action by twitter.com, whichever comes first.

Graham Manou!
Graham Manou, you may recall (or probably not, because it's Graham Manou), sat for 30 long minutes at the all-in media conference before the Ashes series started and faced precisely no questions. The same Graham Manou who made a golden duck in his first hit for Australia. The same Graham Manou who could only possibly get a Test for Australia if something went horribly wrong with Brad Haddin. Pardon? Oh. Dear Lord, please don't let this go as pear-shaped as we fear it will.

There are horrible echoes of the Edgbaston Test in the last Ashes series in 2005 – remember, the 5-0 whitewash of 2006-07 is some collective Australian national fantasy. Glenn McGrath stood on a ball in the warm-up, buggered his ankle, missed the Test and Australia lost. This time, Brad Haddin busts his finger in the warm up when stuffing up a catch – admittedly, not a far-fetched concept given the standard of his keeping– and misses the Test.

Kudos, though, to the England management for letting the Aussies make a late change to the team. And that, dear readers, is the only nice thing you'll read about England in here. Unless they know that a fully-fit Manou is still worse than a broken-fingered Haddin. Bastards!

There's sand in my undies!
We’ve often wondered why beach volleyballers of the female variety wear skimpy clothes. Well, to be honest we haven't wondered for very long. The answer is, if you wear too much clothing you come over all hot and bothered. (Special thanks to the fat guy on the left for his tremendous efforts to help the poor girl.)

The old switcheroo
Changing sports is all the rage. Brisbane Bronco Karmichael Hunt is giving up rugby league to join a non-existent AFL team; Michael Jordan briefly swapped slam dunks for grand slams when he switched to baseball; Scott Draper took up golf after quitting tennis; Anthony Mundine went from rugby league to boxing, as did John Hopoate, via finger-painting.

Now golfer Leif Olson is taking up snooker. And speaking of snooker, this is – and please note: this comes with a colourful-language warning – Jimmy White. We have nothing to add.

Two-ringed Circus
Don't forget to check out The Ashes Circus. We've been sharing a Snuggie with the author and it's fair to say he doesn't know the meaning of Aspray. But he writes a good blog.

The numbers game
4.67 – Shane Watson's average as a first-class opener, prior to the Edgbaston test.
30 million – estimated annual earnings, in pounds sterling, for Michael Schumacher without even getting into the Ferrari driver's seat.
6.53 – seconds by which polyurethane suit-wearing Chinese swimmer Zhang Lin broke Grant Hackett's 800m world record at the Rome world titles.
0 – chance that Hackett's 1500m world record will survive next Sunday's final, according to Denis Cotterell, Hackett's former coach and now Lin's.

Quote of the day
"We were appalled. It's totally inappropriate. We immediately e-mailed them and said 'take it off right away'."
– Tranmere Rovers chairman Peter Johnson after learning that the US firm charged with finding a buyer for the League One club had put it up for sale on eBay.

Headlines we'd like to see
eBay shock: Tranmere Rovers swapped for Camouflage Six Pack Beer & Soda Can Holster Holder Belt