Alastair Cook has been rewarded for his stunning efforts during England's Ashes win by being afforded the freedom of the City of London.

Cook racked up 766 runs in the series at an average of 120 - including three centuries - as England retained the urn in dominant style. He is now back in England having been overlooked for the ODI and T20 sides, but he has not been forgotten.

Cook, who will receive the accolade at a ceremony later this year, said: "I am greatly honoured and privileged to be given the Freedom of London for doing something I love ... beating the Aussies. I would like to thank all those involved with this decision."

Traditionally, the award means he is entitled to drink in any public house in the city for free - an honour that held Andrew Flintoff in good stead when he was granted the freedom of Preston in 2005 - and drive sheep and cattle through the streets.

Shane Warne was never shy of uttering a word or two in an English batsman’s ear during his playing days, but it appears the English have finally found a way to silence him. Warne, who has branched out into poker, commentary and even a line of gentleman’s underwear since his retirement, also had his own cricket-themed variety TV show, Warnie, on the Nine Network. However, the fifth and final episode of the show has been shelved, apparently because of the dominance of the England cricket team in the Ashes. The network decided "there is no need for a show on January 6" because the visitors have already retained the urn.

Warnie opened to viewing figures of 854,000, but that had dropped below 500,000 by the second episode despite guests such as James Packer, Sir Michael Parkinson, Dannii Minogue, Sting, Jeremy Clarkson, Susan Boyle and Coldplay's Chris Martin.

Creating a stamp for the Ashes may be a bit premature. After all, there's still a Test to play © ESPNcricinfo

Andy Flower may be trying to talk up the importance of the Sydney Test, but try telling the Cricket Philatelic Society that the Ashes series isn’t already over. No more than 24 hours after England retained the urn on Australian soil for the first time in 24 years, the society has already designed a stamp to tribute the historic win at the MCG. The stamp has been approved by England’s Royal Mail, and will be available in post offices in the UK by the first week of January. The stamp that features both the Union Jack and the English flag, and has a message of congratulations to England is about as subtle a celebration of England’s success as Graeme Swann’s sprinkler dance.

Eoin Morgan has earned a reputation for ice-cool innings under all sorts of pressure on the field for England, but his reaction to an unexpected visitor during a pre-Test dinner with his England team-mates may have dented that aura somewhat. "Mid sentence ordering my dinner tonight..a massive cockroach crawled down my arm and all over my leg!!" tweeted Morgan after the incident. "Filthy nic!!"

"Never seen @Eoin16 [Morgan's twitter name] move so quick," Steven Finn tweeted in return. "Cockroach up the trouser leg tends to do that though. Came dangerously close to me too." Shortly afterwards he added: "Were not eating in that restaurant anymore. Might have crawled up my nose."

Shane Warne has been a making a few headlines of late, but rather than his suggestion that Michael Beer should be called up it’s now his private life that is back in the spotlight. Following News of the World pictures (and video) that apparently show him embracing Liz Hurley, Warne has confirmed his on-off relationship with ex-wife Simone Callahan is off again.

“Sadly and unfortunately, Simone and I split up a while ago, our close friends and family were informed at that time," Warne said in a statement on his website. "It is a private matter so we did not make it public. We remain friends and will continue to be good parents."

Hurley, too, has been responding to the recent pictures on everyone's favourite outlet – Twitter. "For the record, my husband Arun and I separated a few months ago," she wrote. "Our close family and friends were aware of this."

Funny how those two statements sound so similar. Almost as if they were planned, isn’t it? Anyway, wonder what Hurley has made of Beer’s selection.

All the talk of Shane Warne making an Ashes comeback has left one man a little offended. Fellow legspinner and commentary legend Richie Benaud might be 80, but Australia are looking for a quality slow bowler with a good cricketing brain.

"The really annoying thing about that is that no one has asked me if I wanted to make a comeback," Benaud said. "I think the answer to that is no, because when I started thinking about it, I tried to get my right arm [up] and it wouldn't come up above my shoulder."

Benaud was in a light-hearted mood at the MCG library, where he was launching an exhibition marking four centuries of cricket in print. But when pressed on whether Australia would be better off with Warne, 41, in the Ashes team, he set the record straight.

"Shane was the greatest legspinner there's ever been," Benaud said, "but if he allowed himself to be pressured into playing he'd be off his head."

Kevin Pietersen has been fined A$239 (about £150) and been given three points on his driver’s licence after being caught speeding in a yellow Lamborghini that had been lent to him by his former Ashes adversary, Shane Warne.

Pietersen was busted by traffic cops during a spin along the Great Ocean Road near Melbourne during a day off from training. He was clocked at 121 kilometres (75 miles) per hour in a 100kph (62 mph) zone, but an England team spokesman confirmed that no disciplinary action would be taken against him.

"Geelong highway police detected by laser a yellow Lamborghini travelling north along the Geelong Ring Road at 121km/h in a 100 zone about 2:35pm on Thursday," a police spokesperson said. "The male driver was in his 30s and was issued with a penalty of A$239 and three demerit points. There were no passengers in the vehicle."

Pietersen had earlier used his Twitter page to post pictures of the scenery on one of the world’s most famous roads. “Stunning beaches on The Great Ocean Rd.. Gorgeous drive!!" he said.

A group of Queensland cricket fans have launched a campaign to lure Shane Warne out of retirement in a bid to save Australia from their first home Ashes series defeat in nearly a quarter of a century.

With the hopes of the Australian public crushed by the team's innings defeat at Adelaide, a Brisbane businessman Ross Heywood has set up a website, bringbackwarne.com, to call for donations to an Ashes "Rescue Fund".

So far the site has raised nearly Aus$4000 since going live on Tuesday morning, although given the six-figure sums that Warne racks in through his range of commentary, poker and endorsement enterprises, they'll need a bit more than that ...

"We'll offer the Rescue Fund to the King of Spin, pleading with him to once again don the baggy green and win us back the Ashes,'' Heywood told the Courier Mail, adding that all contributions would be refunded if the campaign proved unsuccessful.

Warne himself is currently on a flight to London, but England's coach Andy Flower gave a wry response to the notion. "I would assume that is just someone messing around," he said. "Shane Warne has retired from international cricket."

Ian Botham and Ian Chappell resumed their 30-year feud in spectacular fashion during the second Test in Adelaide, when they had to be pulled apart by their respective Sky and Channel Nine colleagues following a dust-up in the car-park at the close of the fourth day’s play.

Despite their regular stints in adjacent commentary boxes, neither man has spoken to the other in three decades, with the root of their feud lying in an incident at the Hilton Hotel during the Centenary Test in Melbourne in 1977, when the then-uncapped Botham claimed to have punched the recently retired Chappell off his bar-stool in response to his disparaging remarks about the English.

On Monday, the two came close to blows once again when, according to the Daily Mail, Chappell muttered something provocative in Botham’s direction, before both men dropped their bags and went for each other’s throats. “They might be aged 55 and 67, but neither of them are the type of people to give an inch in the face of conflict,” said a source at Channel Nine.

However, Chappell defended his position: "There was some words spoken in the car park and I am being painted as the instigator," he told 3AW. "I would accept 50 per cent of the blame but certainly wasn't the instigator and as far as the rest of the rubbish is concerned about having each other by the throat and having to be pulled apart that is one of those fairytales I just talked about."

Ricky Ponting and Andrew Strauss exchanged terse words at the close of the first day’s play at Adelaide, as James Anderson was drawn into the centre of a row over sledging during the final stages of Australia’s first-innings collapse.

Ponting, who is protective of his team-mates and never shy of engaging in some verbals, was seen marching over to Strauss alongside Brad Haddin as the teams left the field after England had faced one over of their first innings before stumps.

The row appeared to centre on an incident during the latter stages of Australia’s innings, during Haddin’s ninth-wicket partnership with Peter Siddle, when Anderson was seen talking to the batsmen and, in the words of one Australian newspaper, “invading their personal space”.

Ponting was understood to be complaining about Strauss's lack of on-field management of a bowler whose shy off-field persona belies the fiery character that he has become. When asked about the incident after stumps, Anderson said knowingly: "I'll go back and ask and tell you later."

Sir Donald Bradman lost a record at the Gabba last week, when Alastair Cook took his highest score at the ground, but another one still lives in the collection of Sir Tim Rice. Rice, the man who provided lyrics to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music, had lunch with Bradman in Adelaide 30 years ago and they swapped stories about their shared interests.

“He was a talented musician,” Rice said. “He wrote songs as well, but piano was his instrument. I’ve got in my collection a 78rpm record of Sir Donald playing a couple of pieces and it’s great. It was recorded back in 1930.”

Rice, a former president of MCC, is a cricket lover who will deliver the eighth Bradman Oration on Thursday night. The annual speech is designed to keep alive the name of Bradman, who died in 2001. “It’s about linking aspects of music with cricket, and also about how I got into cricket and how much Australia means to me,” Rice said.

When the musical Evita, which was written by Rice, opened in Australia in 1980 he invited Bradman to the opening night. “He didn’t want to come, or couldn’t,” Rice said, “but very graciously invited me to lunch, which was much better.”

Kevin Pietersen has hit out at Damian Hough, the new curator at the Adelaide Oval, after England's first practice session ahead of Friday's second Test was frustrated by bad weather.

With unseasonal rain restricting the players to indoor practice and cautious warming-up sessions on the outfield, Pietersen wrote on Twitter: “What should a groundsmen [sic] make sure he does 2days out from a test match???? Cover the nets when it rains maybe???” He later followed up with: "PATHETIC!"

According to eye-witnesses, Pietersen also vented his frustration in person at Hough, who took over at the Adelaide Oval this year, following the 32-year reign of the ground's previous curator, Les Burdett.

Pietersen is no stranger to Twitter controversy. Back in September, he was fined by the ECB after inadvertently revealing the fact that he had been dropped from England's one-day squad against Pakistan. In a hastily deleted message, he declared the decision a "****-up", and also revealed that he was about to join Surrey on a short-term loan deal.

Fittingly, Hough's actions were defended in a separate tweet on behalf of SACA from Cricket Australia's general manager, Peter Young, who wrote: "SACA has put out a statement re rain 2day, 1st priority was to protect Test track, practice wix [wickets] then covered, normal practice 2moro."

Hough, who unveiled his first Test wicket on Tuesday afternoon, has promised a "traditional Adelaide wicket".

Ashley Kerekes, the babysitter from Massachusetts who has become a cricketing celebrity because of her twitter name (@TheAshes) may get to learn about cricket with her own eyes. Kerekes, who has now started selling t-shirts with the logo “I am not a freaking cricket match” printed on them responded to a mistaken tweeter by asking “What the hell is cricket?” That prompted users to start a campaign tagged #gettheashestotheashes. Qantas airline has responded. They’re offering the 22-year-old free flights to watch the game, while Vodafone Australia has offered to "pony up #theashes tickets & a phone so she can tweet". The second test starts on Friday in Adelaide, but Kerekes hasn’t confirmed that she’ll be there.

If you close your eyes during play, Brisbane has a distinctly English sound. The flagging pound and strong Australian dollar hasn't stopped thousands from coming on holiday and today it felt like more than half of the crowd of 21,677 were tourists.

"Unfortunately we were not able to quieten the Barmy Army for too long today, we had to put up with it," Shane Watson said. "They didn't seem to carry on too much yesterday when Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin were batting so well, but we gave them the chance to carry on today."

Has the English support had any influence on the Australians? "I don't really think it has," Watson said. "It's a bit annoying to be honest."

The perils of social networking have hit home in a big way for a previously anonymous young lady in Westfield, Massachusetts, whose username on Twitter, @theashes, has turned her into an unwitting hub for all the banter circulating around the ongoing first Test at the Gabba.

@theashes, whose Twitter page is decorated with distinctly un-cricket-like floral pink wallpaper, responded in a measured fashion to some of the first traffic that passed through her page, telling one user “this isn’t the cricket twitter”. However, by the start of the third day of the Test her patience finally snapped.

“I AM NOT A FREAKING CRICKET MATCH!!! That means you @matywilson @zandertrego @thesummats @ atonyboffey @faz1988 and MORE,” she wrote, a response that quickly went viral, ensuring that she is now fielding endless enquiries about Andrew Strauss’s captaincy, Mitchell Johnson’s hopeless form, and during one drinks break, an appeal to “put the kettle on love”.

The intimidating cauldron atmosphere of the Gabba will have a soothingly familiar accompaniment for England's cricketers this week, after it was confirmed that the Barmy Army trumpeter, Billy Cooper, has been given permission to play his instrument throughout the five-Test series.

Four years ago, Cooper lasted for barely a session on the opening day of the series before being hauled out of the Gabba for breaching the ground regulations. That was just one of a number of incidents in the match that soured the atmosphere for the visiting supporters, who complained of scattered ticket allocation and over-zealous officialdom from the so-called "Fun Police". At one stage the Barmy Army organiser, Paul Burnham, threatened to call the whole tour off.

Now, however, the classically trained Cooper has applied for special dispensation through official Cricket Australia channels, and is expected to be part of the official entertainment package for the Test series. Happily for those who prefer their atmosphere to be buzzing in the non-literal sense, vuvuzelas remain on CA's banned list.

Justin Langer was heckled constantly about his size by the Barmy Army during his playing days, with the English fans serenading him with “Hi, ho, hi, ho” from the seven dwarfs. Now the Australian batting coach, Langer gets another reminder when he does throw-downs at training. Before he helped Shane Watson fine-tune for Thursday’s first Ashes Test he had to place a step at the non-striker’s end to ensure his release point was up at the height of a normal bowler.

Another Ashes series begins and the resting place of the urn is up for debate again. Well, it isn’t really, because it’s owned by the MCC, but that doesn’t stop the talk. The tiny trophy travelled to Australia last time and flew back to the museum at Lord’s as soon as Ricky Ponting’s men had claimed the series 5-0.

Ponting would like the urn to live in the country of the winners. “That will be good,” he said. "I know there was a lot made last time about how frail it was and whatever else. I'm sure with technology these days there's something to ensure that it's safe on a journey across the world.”

But Andrew Strauss wants it to remain at its current London address. “I think it’s at the home of cricket for a reason,” he said. “If it was possible to transport it around easily maybe it’s the right thing to do. If it isn’t then it’s quite a nice little glass box it sits in at Lord’s.” That’s Strauss’s home ground for Middlesex.

Kevin Pietersen's form has been a hot topic in the lead-up to the Ashes, even more so now that the Australians have seemingly picked a left-arm spinner, Xavier Doherty, just to target him. Doherty averages 48 in first-class cricket, but clearly the Aussies selectors have a masterplan. For his part, Pietersen has already declared himself 'on fire' during this tour and his dismissal for 5 against Australia - bowled by Steve O'Keefe (yes, a left-arm spinner) - is unlikely to dim his belief.

And, judging by this video, KP could take on the Australians with his eyes shut - or at least blindfolded. Facing a bowling machine set to a decent pace he produced a free swing of his arms and launched the ball clear out of the ground. Perhaps if he faces Doherty at the Gabba his best bet is to shut his eyes and swing.

Justin Langer loves his baggy green so much that when he told a Test match lunch in Brisbane that he went to bed with it every night nobody was sure if he was joking. What followed was an on-stage monologue about the tradition of the cap that had Australia’s long-term supporters tingling and Nasser Hussain, the former England captain, trying not to gag.

When Hussain was asked to detail what England’s cap traditions were he said: “No, we’ve got a life, before turning to Langer. "You’re not still sleeping with your cap?”

But Hussain did outline a few things Australia had stolen from the old enemy. “You’ve nicked our sponsor, you’re picking 17 players in a squad and you’re losing games. It’s good to see the roles reversed.”

What's the best way for an under-pressure batsman to prepare for a defining Test? Face a virtual bowling attack consisting of James Pattinson, Moises Henriques, Josh Hazlewood, Shane Warne and Saqlain Mushtaq.

Australia have a new Ashes weapon in the high-tech Probatter system, and Michael Hussey was the first to try it out at Australia's opening training session for Thursday's first Ashes Test at the Gabba. Hussey's form has been under intense scrutiny and he had to seal his spot in the squad with a century for Western Australia last week.

Hussey started off in the net by facing Pattinson - the real version is currently carrying a stress fracture - in a custom-made shed at Allan Border Field. The back wall carries a vision of the bowler running in, and at delivery, a ball is powered out of a hole, at a speed determined by the computer modelling.

Unfortunately the bowling options don't contain James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Steven Finn and Graeme Swann, but the exercise does provide a struggling batsman with another line in self-justification. "I'm feeling great against the virtual bowler, it's just a matter of transferring it to the middle," they can now say.

Shane Watson was not convinced by the technology and left the nets after being bowled and caught behind in three balls. "I'll try anything once," he said as he walked out.

History imbues the Ashes with the sort of significance that goes beyond words. Pride, adulation and a place in cricketing folklore await great Ashes performances but VB Beer have added a further incentive for Australia. Under the "Shout the nation" commitment, if Australia win back the urn from England over the next two months, free coupons for the beer will be printed in newspapers at the conclusion of the final Test on January 8. Feeding 13 million Aussies a free beer would cost the company AUS$20 million at retail prices which makes this seem more like a bet against the hosts than a patriotic promise but if Ricky Ponting is celebrating at the end of the series it could be quite an after party.

© Cricket Australia

Friendly banter from Australians is often misinterpreted overseas and the pre-Ashes stunt to beam images of Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke on London’s Big Ben could lead to legal action. “Don’t forget to pack the urn,” was the message from Ponting and Clarke to England’s departing players from the top of the clock.

But the marketing exercise has upset Westminster city council’s deputy leader Robert Davis, who said the act was a criminal offence. James Sutherland, Cricket Australia’s chief executive, dismissed the threat of legal action, calling the streaming “a little bit of friendly banter between Australia and England”.

“It’s reciprocating what happened a couple of years ago when England shone something on to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It’s just harmless fun and I hope nobody takes it too seriously.” Last year Richard Branson’s image was projected on to the landmark with him saying, “Good luck, Ricky, you’ll need it.”

Davis said the Palace of Westminster was part of a Unesco world heritage site. “It's both inappropriate and insulting for this important location and its buildings to effectively be abused in this manner,” he told the Guardian. In the event of a conviction, the fine is £2500. Given the strength of the Australian dollar, it’s now spare change.

© Cricket Australia

Don't forget to pack the urn. That was the message confronting Londoners when Big Ben was turned into a monumental Ashes taunt overnight. The faces of Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke peered out over the city as England's players prepare to fly out for Australia.

“Winning the urn back from our age-old rival is the most prized achievement for Australians and we just wanted to send them a reminder not to leave the urn behind," Ponting said. “Our message is clear – we’re prepared and we’re ready so bring on the Ashes!”

Mind you, with the world's most famous timepiece on his side, Ponting will have no excuse for slow over-rates this year.

The Barmy Army - that merry group of travelling England fans - are facing a hindrance to their expected revelry in Australia during the Ashes from unexpected quarters, the currency market. The Australian dollar appreciated considerably against major international currencies recently, and a British pound is now worth just A$1.60, compared with more than A$2 last year. The trip to Australia will now cost 36% more for England fans, according to a report in the Guardian. It means pricier hotels, meals, transport, match tickets and, crucially, beer.

Dave Peacock, one of the founding members of the Barmy Army, was unfazed and said the relative weakness of Australia's team made up for the increased strength of its dollar. "The dollar might be lot stronger, but the Australian team is nowhere near as strong as it was four years ago, and our team is on the way up. This is probably the best opportunity we've had since 1986-87. People aren't going to like paying £5 a pint. I think they will still go to Australia, but maybe cut down on a couple of pints a night."

Four years ago, 30,000 England fans travelled to Australia to watch their team getting thrashed 5-0.