I think I've had my fill of summer sport now, ta.
By and large I enjoy a bit of football respite. But the pre-season friendlies have never done owt for my footy cravings. Vegetarian sausages, alcohol-free lager, silicone implants, football friendlies... all one and the same to me. I just want it to get under way and get a bit of order back into my life!
England win an Ashes Test at Lord's; A 59-year-old a putt away from Open glory; Sven-Goran Eriksson is director of football at Notts County. The world has gone mad, I tell you.
I half-expected Sven to 'Robinho' his press conference and talk about the honour of following in Clough's footsteps. No disrespect but there are just four things I know about Notts County:
1. They're not Nottingham Forest and if you say Notts Forest their fans get ridiculously uppity.
2. They're the oldest football club in the world - as if that entitles you to anything. It's a playground argument really. 'Boro are better than Notts County!' 'No!!! Cos my club is older than your club!'
3. Jimmy Sirrel - a wily Scot (managers from north of the border are always 'wily') who raised 'em up from the basement to the top flight in 10 years). And not by using wads of cash from a mysterious source either.
4. Juventus would still be playing in pink if it wasn't for Notts County. In fact it may well be that folks like Claudio Gentile might have been sweet little kick 'n' rush Wenger archetypes were it not for the change of kit.
Having watched the final round of the Open, I got up early Monday morning and clambered into the loft - actually I sent the lad Darren up there 'cos the hole into the attic must've got a lot smaller since I left me golf clubs up there.
I was out on the course by 8am. And I tell you I was playing it like Tom Watson. Tom Watson in the four-hole play-off that is.
There were lots of potential sentimental faves out there. Lee Westwood - a top golfer but somehow his walk never convinces me. He's got the Agassi waddle, hasn't he? But he got very close.
Crikey. It's started. The inexorable tide of sky blue cash is washing over the football superpowers and sweeping away the best they have into a place where Lamborghinis land in your lap, and two hundred grand a week is, as the Mayor of London might put it, chicken-feed.
Prepare yourselves, boys and girls, for a lot of nods and winks towards the official line. You know the sort of thing:
a. It's not about the money, it's about a fresh challenge;
b. The manager and the board convinced me about the vision at Manchester City;
c. The (previous) club didn't do enough to keep me. (That's my personal favourite)
Of course (c) has an awful lot to do with what is inherent in (a). By not enough, a player, or at least his agent, usually means that the club couldn't cough up the sort of wages that the Abu Dhabi blokes can. But then unless Bill Gates takes over the Boro soon, I don't think anyone can.
It's all been happening in Cardiff, hasn't it? What with the Test Match and Torchwood. In the case of the latter, the kids chanting alien messages was great fun and when they all said as one 'WE ARE COMING - BACK!' I assumed the aliens must be Welsh.
It was a joy to hear the bastions of TMS constantly having to qualify the usual clichés of combox chit-chat. You know, the 'it's a perfect English - erm, not to say Welsh - summer's day.'
Blowers was in particularly fruity form post-lunch. I swear at one point, when Colly and Swann were in, he said 'So it's 192-7 - is it? No. It's 182-7. Collingwood has 51. Has he? Oh. 61! 61 for Collingwood, I'll get it right in a minute... now let's see how Broad gets on with facing Katich. Is it Katich? Broad's out? It's Swann....'
Well it's all kicked off. The Ashes. The biennial fight for the most ridiculous trophy in world sport - and since the passing on of Morecambe and Wise, everyone's favourite Little Urn.
Can't they just make a bigger one? I mean every time I see a picture of Vaughany and Punter holding that tiny little toy pot it reminds me of how me mam used to buy me a tiny cheap choccie egg at Easter while Tony Thompson was tearing apart a giant Milk Tray jobbie. She said we were poor, I say she was tight.
Day one began with an almighty sing-song. Of course it being Wales they had to wheel out Katherine Blinking Jenkins. A bonny lass for sure but I'm sure if she was built like Harry Secombe circa 1972 we wouldn't have to be listening to her warbling every time anything of significance happens on the other side of Offa's Dyke.
'Right' said the missus, 'You've got today, Monday and Tuesday to wallpaper the wall in the bedroom and put a lick of paint on the walls before the Ashes begin.'
That was Sunday morning. I pointed out there was the little matter of the Wimbledon men's singles final and she laughed in my face. 'That'll be over in an hour and a half!'
'What if it rains?' I was going to say. Curse that bloody roof. Any road, A-Rod and R-Fed couldn't have played it better.
Squawk! Thump! Squawk! Thump! Squawk! Thump!
Crikey the lasses' tennis is boring isn't it? On the radio it sounded like someone was taking out their grievances on a colony of herring gulls.
The game between Mauresmo and Safina looked like a thriller on paper but I've never been so bored. And Safina v the German lass in the quarters was no better - it was like watching a tree-felling competition between two very tired giants.
Have Marat and his sister ever been seen in the same place at the same time? Cos as far as I can tell they're interchangeable.
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I'm Derek Robson. People call me Robbo. Legend has it I was raised in the furnace and smog of Teesside. Some might say I took the hard road. I like to tell folk I had trials for Middlesbrough, for Hartlepool and for burglary (not guilty). I've always loved sport. My job is to say it as I see it - whether it's in the bar of the Blue Bell or on this blog. You won't find me calling a spade a soil-redistribution implement.
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