Flower signs new England contract

Flower joined the England set-up as assistant coach in 2007 Andy Flower has signed a new contract to remain as England team director.

The former Zimbabwe captain, 43, took over from Peter Moores in January 2009 and has since overseen successive Ashes series victories over Australia.

"I am delighted to have been given the opportunity to build on the considerable progress we have made to date as a squad," he said.

Flower had been India's first choice as their new coach before they appointed Duncan Fletcher in April.

However, the approach soon faltered as the former Essex batsman was unwilling to consider uprooting his family.

England begin a four-Test series against India in July.

"We have made no secret of our determination to become the number one side in the world and challenge for global titles and I feel we have been making steady progress," added Flower.

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Now that Flower's continuing services have been secured, the ECB's next task is to determine whether Andrew Strauss wants to stay on as one-day captain

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"I firmly believe we have the talent amongst the playing squad and management team to help us realise our ambitions."

Despite an underwhelming campaign in the recent Cricket World Cup, Flower has built a formidable reputation during his spell with England.

In addition to Test series victories over Australia, he guided England to their first major tournament win at the World Twenty20 in May 2010.

During his tenure England have risen from sixth place in the International Cricket Council's Test rankings to third behind India and South Africa.

In contrast to the fractious relationship between then-captain Kevin Pietersen and his predecessor Moores, Flower has led a united dressing room.

Since taking the job on a permanent basis in April 2009, after an initial period as interim coach, he has forged a close and successful partnership with Test captain Andrew Strauss.

Flower also won admiration for the manner in which he managed skin cancer - having a melanoma removed from his right cheek during the during the second day of the opening Ashes Test in November.

"Andy's outstanding leadership, commitment, and his open and honest approach have been key factors in the success the England squad has enjoyed over the last two years," said England Cricket managing director Hugh Morris.

Although there is no specific clause in Flower's new contract giving him more control over the team's future schedule, he will meet with Morris and his support staff in the next few weeks to discuss players' workloads.

Flower blamed injuries in the run-up to February Cricket World Cup on the length of the Ashes tour that preceded it prompting fears he could walk away from his post.

England played their first tour match against Western Australia on 5 November and completed the trip with their seventh one-day international on 6 February.

Flower is keen to ensure England do not endure a similarly congested fixture schedule again, ensuring he has sufficient recovery time from intensive Test, one-day and Twenty20 series.

"The volume of cricket played is tough for anybody," said former England fast bowler Angus Fraser told BBC Radio 5 live.

"Andrew Strauss has a huge workload, players are rested so why shouldn't coaches?

"It is difficult for coaches to be fresh to maintain their enthusiasm over a period of time."

Brasil, France, England, Canada, Oklahoma and Texas

Dear Parents,

Can I just say that I am getting my frequent flyer miles in these last few weeks? This past week alone I have visited children in Brasil, Canada, England and France. I finished out the week in Tulsa, Oklahoma after spending a long night in Corpus Christi, Texas.

If you recall, last week my travels took me Buenos Aires, I immediately got the ‘call’ that a young girl who lived along the Amazon had lost her third tooth. Not having access to television or the Internet, she wasn’t even aware who the Tooth Fairy was. Neither, I am told, were her friends and family. They live, if I understand this correctly, not too different from how your ancestors lived hundreds if not thousands of years ago. It turns out that little Agueda is the first in her fishing village to be visited by me. I had to check my records and indeed that was correct. After I stuck some money under her pillow, I stayed and chatted with her parents a little while. They were a little fascinated by my outfit. Quite honestly, so was I by theirs! Agueda already has a Tooth Fairy Certificate in the mail to her.

I made rather routine stops in Montreal, Canterbury (England), a little town in the South of France named Barjols and Tulsa. Children lost their teeth, I arrived to leave them a little gift and left as quickly as I came. In one case, I had to slip out the chimney. Mom and Dad in England had already closed their windows and clean as they were, I flew right into one! Ouch!

On my way to Tulsa, I got the message on my mobile phone (how did you think I get notified about kids and their missing teeth? Telegraph? Wire? Come on, I am hip!) that Carlos lost his tooth. When I arrived, however, I learned the extent of the situation. He lost one, and one was sure to follow, any minute. It isn’t common for two teeth to come out simultaneously unless it is by accident.

I hung out and chatted with Mom, Dad, Carlos’s older brothers and sister and it seems like all his aunts and uncles. They kept asking me questions about how I got into this line of work and I said that I really hadn’t known the answer. I couldn’t remember when I wasn’t the Tooth Fairy and handing out Tooth Fairy Certificates. My guess was that I was born this way, wings and all.

Fortunately, Carlos didn’t see me, I have a special device that I can turn on and off at will for occasions such as these. After Carlos lost his second tooth, he fell asleep from utter exhaustion and I slipped in between his pillow and him and exchanged his tooth with a little gift. I hear that he woke up just as I was leaving. Boy did his parents have a lot of explaining to do.

I just finished his Tooth Fairy Certificate and it is already on its way.

Goodnight and Sweet Dreams (not too sweet, keep those teeth as long as you can!)

Love,
The Tooth Fairy

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Gay Priest May Become Church of England Bishop

Robert Barr The Associated Press

LONDON—The Church of England may be on the verge of promoting a gay priest to bishop, a step that would widen the split over sexuality in the global Anglican Communion.

If that happens, it would appear to be a significant turnaround for Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the Church of England and the world’s Anglicans, who recently imposed sanctions on the U.S. Episcopal Church for electing a lesbian bishop.

According to newspaper reports, Williams is prepared to back the elevation of the Very Rev. Jeffrey John, who withdrew seven years ago from an appointment as a suffragan (assistant) bishop in the face of a heated controversy about his homosexuality. Williams’ office will not comment.

“I think the strength of the opposition is much weaker this time,” Rev. Canon Giles Goddard, the chairman of Inclusive Church, said Tuesday. His group was founded by people disappointed by John’s failure to become a bishop in 2003.

John, who is now dean of St. Albans Cathedral, might be seen as a more acceptable candidate than the U.S. bishop because he has declared he is celibate — and therefore not in violation of church teaching.

A Crown Nominations Commission, composed of 14 Church of England representatives, including Williams, met in secret Monday and Tuesday to choose two nominees to become bishop of Southwark diocese, the half of London that lies south of the River Thames.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who has spoken strongly in favour of equal rights for gays, will have the final decision about whom to recommend to Queen Elizabeth II, who will make the formal appointment. Southwark diocese says a decision may not be announced before October.

Williams has said nothing publicly about the issue.

After the Episcopal Church elected Mary Douglas Glasspool as an assistant bishop in Los Angeles, Williams moved to bar Episcopalians from representing the Anglican Communion on international ecumenical bodies. “This is simply to confirm what the Communion as a whole has come to regard as the acceptable limits of diversity in its practice,” Williams said in a letter to the global church.

John, who is 57, has claimed celibacy despite being in a civil partnership. Neither Glasspool nor V. Gene Robinson, the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, has claimed to be celibate.

Rev. Paul Dawson, media officer for Reform, an evangelical grouping, objects that John has defended sexual gay relationships that are “Permanent, Faithful, Stable,” as the title of one of John’s books puts it.

“If you have a bishop who is effectively teaching what is against the Bible’s clear teaching and what the Church of England says is its doctrinal position, if you have someone at the highest level saying this is a ‘blessing,’ this is a ‘gift,’ that raises all sorts of questions for the average churchgoer,” Dawson said.

Appointments to bishoprics are the battleground in the Anglican debate about the role of women and homosexuals in the church.

The Church of England’s governing General Synod will resume its debate about permitting female bishops this weekend as it continues trying to mollify conservatives who fought against making women priests and now resist what appears to be general support for women as bishops.

Anglican agonizing over sexuality has dogged Williams since 2002 when he became spiritual leader of the Church of England and of the Anglican Communion.

When John was nominated become bishop of Reading, Williams is believed to have yielded to conservative opposition.

“He cracked after two months of pressure and asked John to withdraw his name, establishing his reputation as a man who could be bullied,” religion commentator Andrew Brown wrote in The Guardian newspaper.

“If he is beaten again, he is finished. If he wins, he will have shot the rapids and the Church of England will finally emerge from the turbulence of the last 30 years with a fairly clear and fairly coherent doctrine about sex.”

The prime minister, in an interview with the gay magazine Attitude early this year, said his Conservative Party supported equal rights “whether you are male, female, black, white, urban, rural, straight or gay.” The church, Cameron said, “has to do some of the things that the Conservative Party has been through — sorting this issue out and recognizing that full equality is a bottom line full essential.”

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