Australian cricketer Don Bradman was born 100 years ago — on Aug. 27 1908 in the New South Wales country town of Cootamundra.

His feats on the cricket pitch were the stuff of legend. He averaged 100 runs every three innings and by the time he retired in 1948 his test batting average was a record 99.94 — perhaps the most famous number in cricketing history.

The world has seen some remarkable records broken over the past week at the Olympics in Beijing — do you think it is likely that Bradman’s 99.94 will ever be bettered? Can any modern batsman even compare?

The best days of modern greats like Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting appear over, but could England’s great hope Kevin Pietersen catch up and overtake that magic average?

Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest and American Express account holders’ personal details were found on a computer’s hard drive after it was sold on eBay.

The security breach was the latest in a series of incidents involving banks and government departments where sensitive personal data has gone astray.

Critics say the mishaps feel like they are becoming daily: personal bank details are sold on eBay one day, another bank’s computer disc goes missing in the post another day, while a government contractor’s memory stick is lost during another. 

Experts and politicians have called for better security, driven by a “cultural change” and a harsher climate of penalties.

Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake describes the current approach taken by business and government as “slapdash”, and says they must learn to value the information in terms of how much it would be worth if it got into the wrong hands.

Cyber-Ark, a firm that helps organisations protect highly sensitive data, said organisations must adopt stricter rules preventing staff gaining access to information.

“There is no respect, no concept of value,” the company’s Calum Macleod said.

“There is insufficient care and attention. People who work in IT are allowed to use their privileges to gain access to information which has nothing to do with them.

“It is too easy for these employees to access information — there is far too much emphasis on accessibility. I don’t think organisations have really thought through mobility of information.”

Allowing information to become lost or sold is “bread and butter” for the criminal fraternity who can use the data to assume identities and clear bank accounts.

Do you feel banks and the government take personal data seriously? What could be done to better protect your information?

Britain’s second-quarter GDP growth was precisely zero, reflecting the country’s weakest performance since the recession of the early 1990s.

With growth in the services and manufacturing sectors equalling the dismal figures of 2005 and interest rate futures rising, it’s a double whammy, hitting both our pockets and, some would say, our morale.

At the same time, inflation currently stands at more than twice the central bank’s 2 percent target, hampering the Bank of England’s ability to boost growth by bringing down interest rates.

Most analysts do expect it to cut rates and some predict a move before Christmas. Others say it will have to wait longer.

Do you think the Bank needs to act sooner to prevent a full-blown recession of two quarters of negative growth? Just how bad do you think the economic slowdown will be?

Credit crunch, surging food prices, rising unemployment, house prices tumbling, maybe even a recession …. isn’t it all enough to make you feel miserable? And I’m not even mentioning the dismal British summer weather.

And all that desolation can be measured - the Misery Index is a financial pain barometer measured by adding the rate of inflation to the unemployment level.

Financial Web site Money Morning points out in a note that it now stands at a 12-year-high of 9.8 percent in Britain (consumer price inflation of 4.4 percent plus unemployment rate of 5.4 percent).

Not the most scientific approach but the index’s founder, American economist Arthur Okun, based it on the assumption that a higher rate of unemployment and a worsening of inflation both create economic and social costs for a country. Some analysts also argue that the rate of crime and the misery index correlate strongly.

During the Presidential campaign of 1976, Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter made frequent references to the Misery Index, which by the summer of 1976 was at 13.57 percent. Carter stated that no man responsible for giving a country a misery index that high, had a right to even ask to be President. The remark may have haunted him somewhat as four years later it had soared to 22 percent and Ronald Reagan won the election.

While 22 percent sounds high, spare a thought for the British consumer. Money Morning points out that in the summer of 1974, the UK Misery Index climbed well into the 30s, as annual inflation topped 26 percent and the country was hit by the three-day week. Then after a hitting a low of 13 percent by mid-1978, the index took off again after the “Winter of Discontent”, reaching 26 in the early months of Margaret Thatcher’s reign as Prime Minister.

More gloom and doom to come - is it all getting too much? You could try and listen to Baltimore-based death metal band “Misery Index” with its anti-consumerist lyrics or buy one of their T-shirts stating that “Ignorance is Bliss”.

Gordon Brown’s brief visit to Afghanistan brought sympathy for his political plight from President Hamid Karzai but his attempts to evoke the Olympic spirit with British troops drew a decidedly cool response from the ranks.

For the travelling pack of reporters, he only had one stock answer bu that didn’t stop them from hounding him with the same question.

Thousands of miles from home, at a press conference in the Afghan capital, Brown was repeatedly probed by reporters about his leadership, or lack of it as his enemies might say.

“We are getting on with the job,” Brown said, when asked about rumoured plots against him.

“It’s a good relationship,” he answered, when quizzed on the supposed aspirations of Foreign Secretary David Miliband. “We get on with the job.”

The journalists even had Afghan President Hamid Karzai discussing the topic.

“Cabinet ministers plotting is nothing new. We have it in Afghanistan too,” he said, smiling.

Brown will be hoping announcements he will make in September of economic measures to give Britons more money in their pockets will ease some of the doubts about his role as party leader.

In the meantime: “I am getting on with the job and that is what people would expect me to do,” he said.

He was in more expansive mood with the troops.

Wearing a dark suit and a purple tie, minus the jacket, told them they were “truly heroes”.

Stood against a backdrop of armoured tanks and trucks, he likened them to Britain’s medal-winning Olympic team in Beijing — only the soldiers made the country proud “every day of the week, every week of the year,” he said.

But the gathering of 300 or so men and women who listened to Brown at the British army headquarters in Camp Bastion, Helmand province, did not respond in kind.

They stood in silence amid the heat and dust. There were no cheers or applause after he wrapped up his patriotic address.

Some, largely those of higher rank, said the high-profile visit did make a difference to troop morale.

Captain Phil Hobbs said: “It shows support. It’s getting leadership involved at every level.”

But the more junior soldiers did not seem overly impressed and had little to say about their drop-in guest.

One said he had preferred the recent entertainment laid on at Bastion of comedy, dancing and a live band. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Brown is no match for a knees-up, especially after a few months in a tent in the desert.

Team GB has had a glittering Olympic Games in Beijing, with its best showing in the medals table for a century.

Performances by the country’s cyclists, sailors, swimmers and rowers have resulted in a gold haul of at least 16 golds, with a few days still to go.

Cyclist Chris Hoy, who became the first British athlete to win three gold medals in an Olympics, was one of a clutch of stars to make history.

Ben Ainslie became Britain’s most successful Olympic sailor, while Rebecca Romero became the first British woman to win two medals in two summer Olympic sports.

London 2012 chiefs had targeted fourth place in the medals table in four years’ time, but Team GB was already holding third place in 2008 ahead of Russia and arch rivals Australia.

Will Team GB be able to perform so well in 2012? Or has it peaked? What needs to happen to help it maintain expectations?

When the government established the British Airports Authority in 1965, its aim was to make airports more flexible and profitable. Profitable they may have been but flexibility is not something that Britain’s larger airports are renowned for.

The list of complaints about BAA is a long one, both from airlines and passengers. Airlines says the charges levied are excessive. Travellers say airport terminals are overcrowded, delays are all too frequent and increased bureaucracy has prevailed since the tightening of baggage restrictions in August 2006.

Some commentators say competition will do wonders for airports which might get run for the benefit of airlines and passengers rather than the operating company, which sometimes has been criticised as being more interested in making money from its airport shops than in giving travellers a speedy journey through its terminals.

“BAA is one of Britain’s most arrogant, complacent and customer-unfriendly businesses. It’s a showcase for the disbenefits of immunity from competition,” Jeff Randall writes in the Daily Telegraph. “BAA handles more than 90 percent of all airport traffic in the South East, yet treats those who pay its wages - airline passengers - as a nuisance. As long as it enjoys such monopoly power, we can look forward only to more of the same.”

But others argue that with BAA’s more than 40 years of experience and the company’s investment in the UK’s airports, a break-up could cause even more problems, and crucially, might not help sort out one of the key issues for transport policy - airport capacity. Heathrow, for example, is so close to bursting point that even small disruptions can lead to big delays.

Even British Airways, which has experienced its fair share of problems at BAA-owned airports, pointed out after the release of the Competition Comission’s report that the “ownership structure is secondary and that the focus should be on tougher regulation to help create more capacity.

Five years ago, the government published a 30-year air transport policy document. It was born following an exhaustive consultation process, which was open to every person in the country. An impressive 500,000 people from all over Britain participated, a reflection on what a crucial part airports play in people’s journeys.

The policy document recognised that new capacity remains the key issue facing Britain’s airports. It recommended that two new runways should be built in the south-east - one at Stansted and one at Heathrow, provided robust environmental conditions could be met.

Do you think the breakup of BAA’s airport empire will help improve things for passengers? Or is a complete rethink needed on how airports are run?

    ****For full Olympic coverage click here****

Boxing chiefs are to press for the inclusion of female fighters in the 2012 London Olympics.

They say theirs is the only sport in the Olympic programme without women and they await a decision from the International Olympic Committee by December.

Women did actually box in the 1904 Olympics and the sport has developed a higher profile in recent years thanks to boxers like Laila Ali and Jaqueline Frazier-Lyde, the daughters of old rivals Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier.

The International Boxing Association women’s commission vice-chairwoman Bettan Andersson believes having women’s boxing at the Olympics would help improve the overall image of the sport.

“If women come in, people will feel the sport is more common, not so dangerous, and that would be a very good thing for the image of boxing,” she says.

But not everybody agrees.

There are plenty who say that even men’s boxing is too brutal a spectacle to be part of the Olympics and that to see women belting each other in the ring would be even worse.

Better to open the door to the sports like golf and rugby that are lobbying for inclusion in the Games.

Do you think women’s boxing should be included in the London 2012 programme?

The resignation of another key aide to Mayor Boris Johnson has sparked renewed questions over the Mayor of London’s leadership, with opposition leaders at City Hall charging that the “wheels are coming off” his new administration.

Tim Parker , the First Deputy Mayor and Chairman of Transport for London (TfL), has stepped down from both jobs, saying it was inappropriate for him to hold them as an unelected official. His resignation is the third of a key aide in the four months of Johnson’s mayorship.

Despite having a rather big job to do already in running the capital, Johnson will now chair TfL himself. In his usual combative style he announced: “Over the last few weeks, it has become increasingly apparent to both of us that the nature of the decisions that need to be taken are highly political and there is no substitute for me, as the directly elected Mayor, being in charge.There are limits, therefore, to what can be delegated.”

It begs the question why Parker was installed in both roles in the first place - the running of London’s transport system has always been a politically charged issue.

More important for the future though is whether Johnson is biting off more than he can chew by chairing TfL. Even in times of crisis, delegation to top aides will be crucial for the mayor’s success. One of the key arguments against voting for Johnson as mayor was his perceived lack of managing a large organisation, and judging by the rate at which senior aides are disappearing, he looks set for a rough ride, not least as yet another strike is looming on the London Underground.

A woman who shared a pinball game online has been ordered to pay 16,000 pounds in compensation and legal costs to its creator.

The Patents County Court in London ruled in favour of TopWare Interactive, a U.S. computer game developer that said she had infringed its copyright.

The case is the latest attempt by the entertainment industry to try to protect its music, games and films from growing threat of online piracy, which it says is killing business.

Quicker Internet connections have sparked a boom in people swapping music, films or TV programmes.

The Recording Industry Association of America says file sharing has hit profits, put songwriters out of work and made it harder for new bands to get a contract.

“The crime is theft,” it says on its website. “Everyone who makes, enjoys or earns a living in music is hurt.”

File sharers hotly dispute that argument.

Copyright infringement is not the same as theft because the owner is not deprived of their property.

You wouldn’t expect to end up in court if you loaned a book or DVD to a friend, they argue. So why should it be any different with digital tracks or films?

Cracking down on file sharers will simply drive them further underground, making it even harder for companies to make money out of their content, according to contributors on the Open Rights Group website. 

Regardless of the legal arguments, do you think file sharing is morally wrong? Do you think it stifles creativity by reducing the amount available to spend on new acts?