Profile Folgen

With the Ashes underway, Mark Coles profiles the England cricket captain Alastair Cook. Born on Christmas Day in 1984, Cook's first career was as a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral. A talented musician, he also studied the clarinet and the saxophone but cricket soon took over and he made his England Test debut at 21, scoring a century. He's hit more Test centuries for England than any other player but shuns celebrity and spends his spare time sheep farming.

This week the football world ascended dizzying heights of breathlessness over the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson. But as one footballing titan steps down, another - a man who is, in some ways, the antithesis of Sir Alex - is about to step up to take on one of the highest-profile jobs in world football. Tim Franks profiles Pep Guardiola, and asks whether he could be Sir Alex's successor as perhaps the most successful manager in the game.

As she wages war against tax avoidance, Margaret Hodge - Chair of the Public Accounts Committee - is enjoying a blazing Indian summer in her political life. As Edward Stourton discovers, her political journey is set against the background of a turbulent personal life that began as the daughter of Jewish refugees in Egypt.