While England fans debate the Flintoff/Strauss captaincy issue ahead of the Ashes squad announcement, the man they are vying to replace believes either will do a good job.

A persistent knee injury ended Michael Vaughan’s hopes of defending the famous urn and recapturing his sensational form from the 2002/3 series down under, when he amassed 633 runs at an average of 63.30.

He refuses to be drawn on which Andrew he thinks should lead England, but he does have plenty of advice to offer his temporary successor.

“For me a lot of the captaincy is done in and around the dressing room, how you relay your messages and what mental attitude you send your team out with because they will follow the captain’s lead,” Vaughan told BBC Sport.

“If you set them with a great positive mental attitude then you’ve got a chance.

“I don’t know how the players have reacted in the dressing room, but judging by the success they (Flintoff and Strauss) have had, they are both decent at what they do.”

Strauss, the public Durham University graduate nicknamed Lord Brocket by Matthew Hoggard, is perfect son-in-law material - intelligent, yet very popular among his peers.

When you have the respect of your team, they know when to and when not to speak Michael Vaughan

Flintoff is the brash, hero with the charisma to match his inspirational, whole-hearted style.

But despite their polarities, both men have shown a flair for leadership.

Flintoff’s finest hour in charge was England’s series-levelling win over India in Mumbai in March, a victory made the more memorable as the tourists were without five key players from the 2005 Ashes series.

Meanwhile, Strauss’ faith in Monty Panesar saw the left-armer spinning England to a comprehensive - albeit controversial - 3-0 series victory over Pakistan this summer.

“Both players are great characters and both have the personality to be good captains for the future,” said Vaughan.

“For me, they would not have been given the captaincy if they were not good enough for the job.

“I don’t think it matters what you do, it’s more the personality and person you are. Be yourself and do it your way.”

Flintoff and Strauss have already shown they can inspire and motivate, two key responsibilities for every captain.

Which Andrew will come out on top on 12 September?

“When you have the respect of your team, they know when to and when not to speak,” said Vaughan.

“They have got to get used to the way you react in different situations. All this happens once the team know your traits and your personality.”

Vaughan’s three-year tenure as captain has coincided with England’s Test renaissance, a revival which has taken them to second in the world rankings.

And he has no qualms about divulging more of the captaincy skills collected since replacing Nasser Hussain in 2003.

“I stand at mid-off for the reason that I’m the ear and the person the bowler can turn to with ideas,” said Vaughan. “I also have a great opportunity to move the field without anyone noticing.

“That’s part of the tactics of being a captain - not being seen.”

Easy as that? Perhaps not - but let’s hope Messrs Flintoff and Strauss are listening.

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Video blogging is all the rage, and with modern camera phones capable of capturing better quality footage it will not be long before we are all making our own online TV shows.

But unless you are as perfect as the Click team, you are going to need to edit your captured footage for the best results.

Enter Jumpcut, a fantastically simple and totally free video editing tool that will have editing like a pro in no time.

You will need to register to start using the features, but why not take a look at the video tutorial first by clicking Try A Demo on the opening page.

The tutorial should sort you out with the basics, so I will just add a few tips. Uploaded clips can only be 50MB, so make sure you break them down before starting.

Do not forget you can add music too, but be wary of copyright issues if you are going to publish to the web.

Once finished you can choose to publish your work to the rest of the vibrant Jumpcut community, or save it to work on later.

Just click REMIX from the movie play screen to re-open the project at a later date.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Next up, a site for all you sporting fans.

Cricket is said to be the sport of gentlemen, and at Cricinfo.com you will find enough stats to really bowl you over.

On the opening page you can access all the latest news from the world of cricket. It looks a bit busy, but is laid out magazine style, so it is fairly easy to find your way about.

Either click through to the stories from the various panels on the front page, or use the navigation panel on the left to jump to the various sections, which include live scorecards, fixtures, results and an extensive archive of past matches and results.

There is also a click box to jump you straight to country specific pages. Just click the arrow and choose the country you are interested in, and a new page opens with news articles and features specific to that region.

There are also columns and blogs, and a Live Video link on the top navigation bar, which shows live coverage when available.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Have you ever been at a loss when buying presents for your own children or for that matter anybody else’s?

This next suggestion was sent in by a Click viewer who runs a great site to help you find the perfect gift.

How do you keep up with all the latest youth fads and buy the right thing? You bookmark Ideal Present.

After free registration the first job is to add a child. You will be asked some questions about the kinds of activities they enjoy, and the next page lets you add more details about their age, the occasion, and how much you want to spend.

This is a UK based website so the values are in pounds, but the ideas returned are good the whole world over. Continue filling in as many of the sections as you want, then click submit to return a list of suggestions from the huge database of presents that have been listed.

In some cases there are links to buy the product, but you do not have to go through this website.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Finally, Instructables is a brilliant website for those with a hands-on approach, and you’ll find it at instructables.

This project aims to be a place for people to post step-by-step on their latest cool DIY project.

Whether it is making a bird nest box with a webcam inside, or a battery-powered portable charger for your MP3 player, you will find dozens and dozens of step-by-step guides here, and if you register an account you can even add your own.

Search the topics by keyword or just click one of the thumbnails on the opening page. I love the Tupperware iPod boombox.

Each guide is accompanied by photos and , and even if you never get round to building anything yourself, it is incredible to see what other people have thought of doing with a few bits and pieces they found lying around the house.

Ministers want people who find it hard to work out “20% off” or “buy one, get the second ” offers to sign up for free refresher maths courses.

Staff from its Get On campaign will be out among the crowds at 10 city centres across England with tips.

The Department for Education and Skills says 14.9m people lack numeracy skills expected of an 11 child.

The Get On campaign staff will be handing out percentage calculators and shoppers to test to see if they could improve their skills.

“We all use numbers every day, but millions struggle to do the kind of basic sums that are so to our lives at work and at home,” said Skills Minister Phil Hope.

“Everyone enjoys the hunt for a bargain, but people might not realise that they can brush up their maths or reading and writing - locally, and for free.”

Shops across the country are gearing up for one of the busiest days of the year, with some opening up in the early hours of the morning.

But many chains and department stores already began their sales a day ahead of the traditional 27 December start date.

A woman working as a hostess in a Japanese bar has to concentrate on just one task, keeping the customer happy.

Happy customers stay longer. They drink more of the bars’ expensive drinks.

That means more commissions for the hostess and more profits for the bar.

There are thousands of hostess bars in Tokyo. Club Lounge Monina is one of the more respectable .

Paid to entertain

The foreign women working there told me they were not prostitutes but entertainers - but they were not keen to give their real names for fear of what their friends and families back home might think of them.

‘Karen’, who is from the Philippines, said: “Our job is just to talk to people who come in to drink, to sing along with them on the karaoke machine, to make them laugh and to try to listen to them.”

Lucie Blackman was killed while working as a hostess

She works five nights a week from Monday to Friday at the club. She says she earns 2,500 yen (10) an hour.

But that is just the beginning. Hostess bars have systems of rewards and bonuses.

“We get tips as well as the commissions for the drinks and if we invite customers to the bar we get money for that too,” said Karen.

Hostesses can also go on dinner dates with customers, known as dohan. They get their dinner paid for and then bring the customer to the club.

The night we were at Club Lounge Monina one of the customers was giving out gifts to a couple of the women he was sitting with.

The women who work there insisted they did not offer any sexual services to the customers.

Maybe some girls work as prostitutes, I don’t know what goes on in other places, but not here ‘Vivienne’

‘Vivienne’, who is from Brazil, said she was worried before she started but she said: “I was so tired of working in a convenience store. I thought to myself, I will give it a try. That was two-and-a-half years ago. I’m still here, I think it is OK.

“Maybe some girls work as prostitutes, I don’t know what goes on in other places, but not here.”

The bar we visited is owned and run by Monina.

At 34, she is unusually young to be a hostess boss or mama-san.

“The best hostesses are good looking for sure, but then it also depends on how they attract customers. It’s not easy if you’re not smart,” she said.

Stricter controls

Currently most of the women she employs are from Asia.

“I used to have many girls, from Cameroon, Senegal, Europeans, Americans, every country but the become much stricter and also the economy’s not so good. Before it was easier to give higher wages, but now it’s not,” she said.

The authorities do seem to be tightening up the immigration rules. In the past many women worked in the districts illegally on tourist visas.

That is not so easy these days.

The immigration department says it has introduced more rigorous checks on young women arriving from certain countries where they suspect significant numbers of illegal workers are coming from.

Since 2005 new measures to combat human have also been introduced.

Responsibility

Monina said there was only so much a mama-san can do to ensure the safety of the girls who work for her.

“It’s really the girl’s responsibility. There are certain rules that you teach the girls, how to tell who is a good, who is a bad customer for instance, but you cannot control what they do out of hours. After the club closes it’s up to them to decide how far they want to go with the customer,” she said.

Hostess bars are part of the mainstream of Japanese culture. Business deals are done there and clients entertained. Wives know they are part of life for “salarymen”.

After the club closes it’s up to them to decide how far they want to go with the customer Monina

But when you sit there and watch the young women cuddling up to the older customers, or so drunk they can barely keep standing to finish their song on the karaoke machine, you wonder whether it really is that innocent.

Of course there are establishments far more sleazy than the one we visited.

As Japanese journalist Kentaro Katayama points out, if a salaryman is looking for sex a hostess club is not necessarily the best place to find it.

He said: “If you really want to have sex with somebody it’s much easier to go to a prostitute.

“Going to a hostess club would cost you more than meeting a prostitute in Tokyo. It is very expensive, and yet still people like to go.”