Richie Benaud returns!

Yes. It's an exclamation mark day: Richie Benaud is returning.

In a world where people actually employ Dean Jones and where Sky only employ ex-England captains, the BBC have done the decent thing and hired the great man as a studio analyst/discussion bloke. They've also hired Geoff Boycott, Jonathan Agnew (a BBC employee anyway) and, hilariously, Tony Greig, who's always worth listening to if he thinks Australians might be within earshot.

There was always a fair chance that Richie 'free to air' Benaud would accept a job at the Beeb, but until it was actually confirmed in writing, we were edgy. Now it's true and the world is a better place. Bizarrely the BBC are focusing on the new pair of anchormen, relegating Benaud to a lower paragraph. If the BBC knew the first thing about marketing, they'd realise that their two biggest draws are Richie Benaud and The Cricket Tune, which has another name, but we're not using it because nobody calls it that.

This is such important news we deliberately used the word 'returns' in the title instead of 'back'. If you don't know what we mean, just put 'back' in the search box on the left and you'll see yet another of our 'repeat until funny' instances of humour.

Richie Benaud signing books

We have a friend who works in Waterstone's in Manchester. Richie Benaud's there today signing books. Meanwhile we're snowed under with work at a job from which we're being made redundant - work that one out.

We're insanely jealous that our friend's going to get to meet the world's greatest living human and probably won't even appreciate it. It's probably for the best that we're not there however. We would almost certainly say something weird. We don't know what it would be. We never do.

You can buy his book, My Spin on Cricket, here, or if you're a bit mental and don't mind spending extra money on what is essentially the same thing, you can get a hardback version. Personally, we recommend getting a signed copy because there's every chance that he touched it with his other hand while he was writing his name.

Warney offers insight into the human condition.

Richie Benaud has urged Warne to keep playing until the 2009 Ashes.

Warne said: "Richie is the man, and if he wants me to try and do that I've got to do everything I possibly can to meet his expectations", thus expressing what we all think.

Richie IS the man. We should all do as Richie tells us. Richie is our overlord.

We're sad because Richie won't help us with our (non) career.