I saw clips of Cheryl Cole returning to our shores at some airport or other with a clutch of photographers crashing and flashing away around her like the dark cloud that used to hang over the 'gruesome twosome' in the Wacky Races.
Poor lass, thought I, and considered offering a broad Teesside shoulder and a box of mansize tissues.
I doubt Mrs. C will get much peace. Tattoos, eh. I've not seen one that doesn't look like a mistake. Apparently, Ashley's friends say Cheryl's Mum moving in hasn't helped. And that's about the only time I've ever agreed with the bloke.
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Every year the Champions League comes round, I tell meself I'm not going to bother this time.
The same sponsors' logos; that blinking choir blaring out the Champions League theme like we're all about to witness the recovery of the Holy flippin' Grail...
Steve Rider's unmoving hair and polished anonymity; the Andy Townsend pencam waffle; the well-prepared but meaningless guest pundit (Paulo Sousa, anyone?)... Gawd it drives me mad. And yet...
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There's a book I used to read to me grandson called 'Peepo'. The opening verse goes:
'Here's a little baby
One, two, three,
Stands in his cot
What does he see?'
It makes me think of Arsene Wenger somehow. What does he see? Wednesday night was clearly a bad one for the Prof. You can tell when it's really bad 'cos he sits on the bench cringing like a kid that's too nervous to stick his hand up to ask for permission to go to the bog.
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The Winter Olympics - I've got no interest in any of the sports involved but I kind of look forward to it every two years.
Of course, the tragic death of the Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili has already cast a shadow over the Games. I haven't seen the incident but apparently some TV networks are still showing it... which is as tasteless as you can get.
Of course there's not a lot of British interest in it, and frankly why should there be? During the recent snowfall that left Teesside looking like it had been smothered in a 300 tog duvet, a Canadian turned up in the Blue Bell, jerked his head in the direction of our Winter Wonderland and said 'Call that snow?'
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This Premier League season has been as predictable as a Steve Harmison delivery. Straight as a die one day, all over the place the next.
It's difficult to say whose fans should feel most aggrieved. Apart, obviously, from the Fratton Park regulars, whose club is being treated like some shabby mongrel taken in by Battersea Dogs Home: a football club is not just for Christmas (or indeed whichever religious festival you observe) it's for life.
Up the top end, you've got Chelsea artistically popping it around like Dutch masters one minute and making a right Jackson Pollocks of it the next.
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It's been an emotionally draining week for me and John Terry - he got very emotional and I drained the Blue Bell dry.
But a love-in at the Bridge and what looks like a charm offensive (that's an oxymoron if ever there was one) shouldn't kid him into believing the rest of us are back in love with the errant lad.
Still, at least it distracts the average football fan from the annual ritual of ducking and diving to avoid that festival of egg-chasing, the Six Nations.
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Just imagine that it's the World Cup final, England v Spain. It's 1-1 at full time with goals by Iniesta and Heskey (I said imagine, OK?). Extra-time can't separate them (although I guarantee that we'll be denied a clear winner by some bogus decision concerning an Oscar-winning keeper's goalmouth writhe) and it's down to pens.
Now, again engaging the full range of possibilities here, imagine both teams score four each (HA!) then David James puts off Nando Torres by turning the luminosity setting on his pink jersey up to 11.
So it's down to one man to win the World Cup. Up he steps, armband on, hair spiked up, and most importantly studs screwed in good and proper. We don't want another Moscow, now do we? And John Terry strikes home the winning spot-kick.
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Oh Lordy. Transfer deadline day. Can't help feeling that this particular window needed a bloke with a squeegee to clean it up. For a while there I thought the only certainty was that if a 'Kittens for sale' sign went up in a Nunthorpe newsagent's window, Spurs would have been interested.
Boro fans had a late rush of blood, mind. Johnson went to Eastlands, where the lad can chat through the winger's art with the likes of Shaun Wright-Phillips. (Head down, run like fury, cul-de-sac, scuff it). Money aside, why young Adam wants to join the bench-bound elite of City's B-team and become one more footballer-shaped scatter cushion is beyond me.
'Course Strachan's asked himself in the light of recent international performances where's the best place to bag a couple of top goalscorers and has somwhow come up with the answer 'Scotland'. Heaven help us.
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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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