All the week's journalism news

This blog's main business may be politics, but journalism news and issues have always featured strongly as I obviously have more than a passing acquaintance with and interest in the newspaper industry.

I'm currently looking after the HoldtheFrontPage journalism website and I've launched a new feature today called Journalism News Digest which rounds up the main stories of the week. Anyone who is interested can read it HERE.

And now for something completely different

An old friend of mine recently made me very envious by taking a three-month sabbatical from his job and using some of the time to drive across the United States. I was delighted to discover he has also started a blog in which he shares his experiences of the journey.

It's an anonymous blog so I won't use his name here, but he is in fact the Anglican vicar who married Gill and I nearly seven years ago, someone who has been one of the greatest and most positive influences on me in my Christian life over the past decade or so.

The blog, entitled Honk If You're Lonely, is part travelogue, part spiritual diary, and is as fascinating and inspirational as its author's perfectly-crafted sermons. If you're into that sort of thing, you can read it HERE.

Was Navratilova the greatest?

Well, according to a Top 100 list of all-time Wimbledon champions in today's Times, she was. But are the men's and women's games really comparable - and would Martina have been quite as successful had the women's game in her day been as competitive as it is now?

The Times has attempted to introduce an objective criteria for measuring greatness, but for me, things like this are a subjective judgement. The greatest players I have seen at Wimbledon in all my years of watching the tournament are as follows:

Men

1. Rod Laver
2. John McEnroe
3. Roger Federer
4. Pete Sampras
5. Bjorn Borg
6. Ken Rosewall
7. Andre Agassi
8. Boris Becker
9. Jimmy Connors
10. Ilie Nastase

Women

1. Serena Williams
2. Martina Navratilova
3. Steffi Graf
4. Justine Henin
5. Billie Jean King
6. Venus Williams
7. Martina Hingis
8. Margaret Court
9. Chris Evert
10. Evonne Goolagong

There are three names on my list who never actually won the Wimbledon title - Rosewall, Nastase and Henin - but all three graced the game with their artistry and richly deserved to lift the crown.

Laver and Serena top the list simply because, in my view, they were unbeatable at their respective peaks - complete tennis machines both.