WE remember that feeling, being home from school with some sickness or other.
After three of four days of Good Morning and Countdown, the chicken soup and antibiotics would begin to kick in and we’d start to feel better.
Never a good thing, especially as we hadn’t bothered our arses to read up on glacial erosion, leaving us perilously exposed for the fortnightly Geography pop quiz.
Andrew Flintoff knows what we’re banging on about. The all-rounder won’t play in the Twenty20 campaign because he wants to continue with his recovery from a knee operation in April.
“He won’t face the Windies in hope of being fit for the crash-bang-wallop Ashes series in July.
“He has been putting in some extremely hard training with Lancashire and should start running and practicing this week,” said Cricket Board medic Nick Pierce.
“After discussions with his surgeon we have decided that he should continue the remainder of his rehabilitation with Dave Roberts, who has overseen his previous rehabilitations.” What previous rehabilitations? He’s as fragile as a porcelain Ledley King.
JENSON’S END NOT ON THE BUTTON
JENSON Button has tightened his grip on the F1 championship with his fifth win out of six at the glamorous Monaco circuit.
He made a bit of a twat of himself at the finish though – racing past the chequered flag and stopping in the wrong place, way past the royal box. Which meant he had to run back down the pit straight to take part in the homoerotic spraying of Champagne froth.
His nearest rival was team-mate Rubens Barrichello – who came in second to give the Brawn team a one-two finish.
The pair had started on super-soft tyres which gave them an early advantage – and Button’s clever management of his tyres pretty much handed him the win early on.
Elsewhere, Lewis Hamilton’s relentless shagging of a Pussycat Doll seems to have taken his eye off the ball this season. He finished 12th, after crashing in qualifying and incurring a penalty for changing his gearbox, which meant he started at the back of the grid.
• AFTER faffing around for parts of his French Open tie against Potito Starace, Andy Murray came out with a 6-3, 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 win.
Ranked three in the world, the Scot was unconvincing, particularly in the third set where he fell behind 5-1, even losing balance and going arse over tit in the clay.
“I got broken at the start of the second set and once I got broken he started to play a lot better,” said Murray.
“He managed to make me move a lot with his forehand but I still found a way to win. In five-set matches, the momentum always tends to shift.
• JONNY Wilkinson is trying to convince everyone he’s not crocked after his move to Toulon – who are attempting to buy their way to a Heineken Cup. The fly-half hasn’t cocked his arse and kicked a ball since October, when he dislocated his knee.
“My body is fine, the knee is perfect and now I just need to adapt to the rhythm of competition,” said Wilkinson,
“I’m going through medical tests, and they’re going well. I feel fresh. I just turned 30, but I feel 20,” he said, almost believing it.
“I have not played rugby for seven months, but I was able to train and take a holiday. My body is fine, the knee is perfect. I’m not stupid. I know the physical demands of playing at the highest level.”
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
• “ONE minute I was painting the lounge, the next I’m being asked to manage a Championship side. My wife will have to finish the glossing,” – Welcome back Ian Holloway, quote section filler and new Blackpool gaffer.
• “DO you think Paolo Maldini at 41 is going out on a Saturday night and drinking with lager coming out of his ears and falling over? I don’t see it somehow,” – Something tells us this Harry Redknapp comment may have been directed at pants-around-ankles boozer Ledley King.
• “IT’S all or nothing for Sheffield United…they must score in the next five minutes to draw level and if they fail to do so, they cannot blame Carlos Tevez for this,” – Talksport Jim Proudfoot has a poke at the Blades’ incessaant whingeing about the long-forgotten transfer saga of Handsome Carlito.
• “SOMEONE who cancels his appearance five minutes before the start of the programme, I’ve never seen that! And yet I spend my life with actors and actresses, and God knows those people can be whimsical.
“What provoked the outburst is that we decided to broaden [the programme] so we could include a discussion about sport.
“Suddenly he fumed: ‘For how long more are people going to associate my name with sport?’ It seems bizarre to insist on talking exclusively about cinema, and not sport too, when his latest film is about sport,” – TV presenter Frédéric Taddei is bemused at Eric Cantona’s withdrawal from his show – Daft of him for expecting logic from Le King.
