Have you ever been mugged?

There's just one thing you should never do, writes Sally Davies.

It's all cricket and it's all good

WHY this crazed belief that Twenty20 is in competition with Test cricket? Why the assumption that Tests wither in direct proportion to the growth of The Land Of Plenty, Twenty20? Test cricket will never die. It survives in Australia without one cent of government funding, for starters. It's a self-sustaining organism, feeding off itself, immune to fads and trends. Crowd attendances are poor but you know how much that matters? Not a fig. TV audiences are large and consistent, and the sponsorship-based finances generated by those ratings keep the air in Test cricket's lungs. Both forms can flourish, complementing each other. Want a one-night stand this week? Watch the Big Bash. Want something deep and meaningful? Savour the Test. You're spoiled for choice. Kids and women lured to the grand game by the excitement of T20 are casting their inquisitive eyes on Tests. The traditionalists are getting a buzz and a laugh out of T20. It's all good. Part of the fascination is seeing players trying to adapt. Seeing Phillip Hughes winding up like Babe Ruth in the Big Bash then turning prim and proper when he's rushed into the Sydney Test. T20 can save the domestic scene. Record crowds at the MCG and Adelaide Oval for the Big Bash this week were a magnificent sight. Both games were gems, and a few of those spectators might now be tempted to take a squiz, or a seat, at the ghost town that is normally the Sheffield Shield. T20 cricket, Test cricket, Shield cricket, Ford Ranger Cup cricket, French cricket, backyard cricket, corridor cricket, beach cricket, tip-and-run cricket - it's all cricket. And all forms of interest should be welcomed. NSW play their first home Big Bash match at Homebush Bay next week. .

Malcolm, The Mogul And Moggy Myths

Malcolm Turnbull has been dogged by cats for three decades. Almost five years ago, during Turnbull's bitter stoush in February 2004 to wrest (by 88 votes to 70) Liberal Party pre-selection for the Sydney seat of Wentworth from the unfortunate incumbent, Peter King, my artist colleague Ward O'Neill did a wonderful drawing of Turnbull for the Herald's sister paper, The Australian Financial Review. It showed Turnbull in his dressing gown holding a coffee mug bearing the image of a cat, with a cat ...

Guilty Of 'mugging' Partygoer

A TANILBA Bay man pleaded guilty yesterday to an incident at a Merewether party in which he smashed a coffee mug on a teenager's face.

Ernie Had Designs On Victory

AS kids, plenty of us made golf courses in our backyard. Over the swings, behind the lemon tree and into mum's coffee mug that had been buried in the ground. Follow that up with a miscue that sails perilously close to a window and the smart decision to put the clubs away before anything gets broken. It wasn't quite that easy for Ernie Els in the World Matchplay Championships but he still won in his own backyard. Els has made the tournament his own in recent years. He even got to re-design the ...

British Contest Highlights Coffee `grunge Culture'

SCIENTISTS are looking for Britain's most stomach-churning unwashed coffee mug in a contest to mark the discovery of penicillin 75 years ago.

Mamma Mia! Merchandise Earns A Spotlight In The Big Business Of Theatre

Not satisfied with the usual merchandise assortment of T-shirts and key rings for his show, Barry Humphries once requested a novelty coffee mug made in the shape of a Wellington boot and filled with custard, to be rather ingloriously named Pus In Boots.

Coffee Mugger Fined

A MAN hit over the head with a coffee mug during a dispute between craft fair stall-holders had suffered a cut artery, Newcastle Court heard yesterday. But the court heard that the injuries caused by the single blow were `out of proportion' to the intent. Julie Adams, a 39-year-old jewellery m

Some Mps Have A Gift For Freebies

PREMIER Bob Carr got a free suit, Olympics Minister Michael Knight got trips in a corporate jet or two, Police Minister Paul Whelan got a coffee mug, many MPs got free overseas trips and Opposition Leader Kerry Chikarovski got nothing. These are among State politicians' annual declarations to Pa

Talk, Talk, Talk

THE PANEL Ten, 9.30pm PRECEDING the The Panel last week was an announcement. The following program is classified M. It may contain adult themes and some course language. Yep, must be time to wash the scunge out of last year's coffee mug. Must be time to draw an asterisk on the back of your ha

The Farcical Games

The writers of a new satirical series on the 2000 Olympics don't plan to blowtorch the gloss off the event. But they won't hold back when they parody the power plays and all the pomp and ceremony. JANE FREEMAN reports. JOHN Clarke is waving around a plastic coffee mug in the shape of a platypus

New Dr Finlay Feels Right At Home

WE are sitting in the sunny, vaguely country-look London kitchen of television's newest Dr Finlay, David Rintoul. As he hands me a coffee mug bearing a Sydney Opera House logo, he says in an unmistakable Scottish burr: "I assure you this was not deliberate." His is a face that pops up freq

Jayden To Get A Vizard Mug After All ...

NICE to report a story with a happy ending. Last week we told you about Steve Vizard and his somewhat underwhelming response to a request from bedridden young Jayden Molony for a Vizard coffee mug. Well, the executive producer of Tonight Live, Chris Greenwood, was on the telephone faster t