The "dog-thrower" Graham Gooch uses to drill England batsmen has become a regular feature of the team's net sessions, and if Jonny Bairstow keeps his place for the next Test at Edgbaston, he will surely become very familiar with it.

Batsman puts his winter spin difficulties against Pakistan behind him to suggest he is ready for a glorious summer

A woman who called in animal rescue after finding what she thought was a 5ft-long snake in her loft was left blushing after it proved to be a novelty draught excluder.

Where were you when Rory McIlroy cracked at Augusta? James Corrigan tracks down his friends and family to relive the horrors of last year's final round

Fantasies from the wild frontier

Two years ago, Kevin Rudd was ousted as Australian Prime Minister by former ally Julia Gillard. Is he about to get his revenge? Kathy Marks reports on a poisonous feud

A heavily pregnant woman was assaulted by three men, one of whom used a knife to "jab" her stomach, police said today.

Drums - Picasso

I've always wondered what he could do with a pair of sticks.

Alone, five miles up, in an unarmed, pale pastel-painted Spitfire, 22-year-old Flying Officer Freddie Ball proved himself a master of one of the RAF's most dangerous wartime duties, photo-reconnaissance over enemy-held territory in daylight. Taking pictures over Germany during the Second World War, Ball had only elapsed time, dead reckoning and a compass to get him home with the precious photographs after a six-hour sortie in an unpressurised, unheated cabin keeping to about 30,000 feet to avoid making a give-away condensation trail.

Soap up and rinse off stress, grime and grit with these brilliant bathroom buys, from spartan sponges to luxe lathers

Newcastle United 1 Queen's Park Rangers 0

Inside Track

"They called themselves protesters. This is a protest," said Rachel Philips, defiantly waving her broom outside Clapham Junction station. She was one of thousands who mobilised to clean up the morning after the worst civil unrest on Britain's streets for many decades. "Bring gloves, heavy duty sacks, brooms, brushes and marker pens," instructed a Twitter feed, @RiotCleanUp. It had over 70,000 followers within hours.

It was a Thursday evening in the Basildon Pitsea Leisure Centre. Phil pushed back his chair, and, swinging his legs up, slapped a mud-encrusted pair of workman's boots on the table. "These are my working-class object," he said. "I couldn't work without them. They say work to me. And working class means work."