Only men allowed?

I don't normally get all 'wimmin' about things. And my interest in sport is almost, though not precisely, zero (I do watch some of the Wimbledon matches - tennis is the only sport whose rules I understand). But even I am truly and utterly shocked that the shortlist for the 2011 Sports Personality of the Year award is 100 per cent male. Is there really not one single female sports player whose presence in such a shortlist would be appropriate?

I understand that the process of drawing up this shortlist is left to a group of male sports journalists and, inexplicably, the editors of a couple of 'lads' mags'. It seems to me that, given the reputation of both genres, someone needs to find a better shortlisting method, and pronto.

Any Questions?

To Ely tonight, as I have a ticket for the recording of Radio 4's Any Questions which is being broadcast from the Hayward Theatre at The King's School. It's a pretty unbalanced panel, as sadly all too often from the BBC; right-wingers James Delingpole and Justine Greening versus socialists Richard Horton and Mary Creagh.

The questions are of course topical: the economic situation in Greece, the threatened Unison strikes, the Tobin tax - and the recent report about the difference between the Scottish and English diets. Justine Greening makes one or two reasonably telling points but is hardly a heavy hitter. James Delingpole lives up to everything I expect of him (unfounded nonsense, basically), and Richard Horton makes few friends trying to defend public sector pensions in a room full of people whose provision is nothing like as generous. Mary Creagh flannels on every question, and she gets a hard time from Jonathan Dimbleby who clearly isn't buying her.

It's a fun evening out, but if I were pushed to describe how it has contributed to the sum of human knowledge I'd be hard pressed.