ASHES ATTRACTIONS ...
Are, firstly, on iPlayer in Gideon Coe's show celebrating cricket, the Ashes and music. Already broadcast but with little fanfare, it's a gem. Coe is joined by Derek Pringle, who selects tunes representing England and Australia, followed by cricket-themed classics from Hedley Verityesque by Half Man Half Biscuit (chosen ahead of one the Biscuits' finest couplets from We Built This Village on a Trad Arr Tune: "Rehearsals afoot for the Christmas Play / It's called 'Roll The Square Arthur' and mind what you say / It's a cricketing farce with a thickening plot / Act One, Scene One – Brenda Blethyn gets shot") to the glorious racket of Kick Down the Stumps by I, Ludicrous. Next, an extended version of Jonathan Agnew's Desert Island Discs (Radio 4, Sunday, 10am), in which the broadcaster talks candidly about his life, family and career. Lastly, Ashes fever continues with the arrival of "cricket tea" crisps from Tyrrells. A "ham, cheese and tomato" flavour created, one assumes, because "cucumber, white bread and Earl Grey tea" didn't focus-group that well.
OPEN APPETISERS ...
Begin with Nick Faldo on Tuesday (5 Live, 9pm), as the six-times major-winning golfer talks about the championship. The programme, appropriately, was recorded at Muirfield, scene of two of three of Faldo's Open wins. BBC2 preview the tournament on Wednesday (11.20pm) with a look back at previous Muirfield Opens, including the first in 1892, while ESPN Classic hosts Best Shots of The Open (Monday/Tuesday, 6.55pm) including Seve's birdie on the 16th during his first Open win in 1979.
FANTASY FOOTBALL ...
A fixture truly the stuff of dreams not long ago as Vietnam play host to imperialist running-dogs Arsenal at the My Dinh national stadium (Wednesday, ESPN, 1pm). A dream too for the locals, Arsenal are extremely popular in Vietnam and will be the first Premier League side to play in the country. Germany meanwhile rerun the Champions League final as Dortmund take on Bayern (Saturday, ESPN, 5.30pm) in the pre-season Telekom Cup, while for fans with withdrawal symptoms, there's a fantasy 3pm, Saturday kick-off, as Liverpool play an Indonesia XI (ESPN).
FORMULA ONE FACE-OFF ...
Between James Hunt (above) and Niki Lauda is explored in Hunt vs Lauda ( BBC2, Sunday, 9pm). The thrilling fight between the pair for the 1976 world championship is dramatised in Ron Howard's film Rush, which looks to be a cracker and is out in September, but here archive footage, managers, families and friends tell the story of the remarkable year when Lauda came back from an appalling crash at the Nürburgring to take the title to the wire.
ROWING ROUND-UP ...
Is from the Lucerne World Cup, which took place over the weekend. The highlights (Monday, BBC2, 3pm) come from the final event before the World Championships in South Korea next month. Great Britain, after a strong Olympic Games, will be looking for the perfect buildup in Lucerne.
MUSICAL COMEBACK ...
Arrives with the hugely welcome return of Niall Quinn. Not that Niall Quinn. Rather the NQ behind The Hitchers, one of Ireland's finest bands and authors of Strachan, voted best football song EVER! by readers of the Observer. Now going by the name Theme Tune Boy after a long-time break, he's back with an album: Return of the Living Dead. A delirious amalgam of pop-punk, shot through with the acerbic yet touching wit and observational genius Quinn brought to his homage to the Scottish dynamo. Fans of that tune will love his new work, out now on iTunes, Spotify and at themetuneboy.com.
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