BOXING: Colombian ex world junior welter weight champion, Antonio ‘Kid Pambele’ Cervantes believes strongly in maintaining the world’s perception of Colombia as a dangerous country filled with cocaine. 
He has been admitted to a psychiatric centre after showing signs of aggressive behaviour, derived from his addiction to – surprise, surprise – drugs and alcohol.
The Kid’s family admitted him after he got into an argument on the streets of Cartagena and apparently shot himself in the arm with a gun he started waving around.
In other news, the French chomp on garlic and the English love their tea.
ATHLETICS: Caster Semenya won the women’s 800m last week at the World Athletics Championships in a world record time of 1.55.45, more than one second faster than the previous record.
But instead of being allowed to celebrate her amazing achievement, the bigoted grown ups at the IAAF who prefer their women competitors to have white skin and piggy tails with pink ribbons, whisked the South African athlete away to a special laboratory to undergo a complicated gender verification test, involving her playing with a Barbie doll and Action Man.
So what if she is muscular, has short hair and sounds like Barry White?
It’s not like FIFA are checking David Beckham’s genitalia after each match for dressing and sounding like a girl.
Quotes of the week
• “INTERNATIONAL football returns to Bramall Lane” – the Sheffield United website slightly overplayed last week’s Trinidad and Tobago U20s v Sheffield United XI fixture.
• “I KNOW that my behaviour when returning late from international duty was unacceptable and I am truly sorry for that, this was my first time outside of Egypt and I made some mistakes.
“I have learnt from those mistakes and they will not happen again,” – Amr Zaki issues the mother of all come-and-get-me pleas to England’s Premier League managers, making sure to let them know that, while he might be absent for three weeks during the African Cup of Nations in January, he won’t be taking his customary two-week holiday once it ends.
• “GRAHAM Taylor once pulled a prank on me and Charlie Miller at Watford. We were messing around at the team photo-shoot and Taylor didn’t take too kindly to it, but he didn’t say anything to us.
“Until we played Walsall away in pre-season. After the game everyone was on the coach when Kenny Jackett told us that the boss wanted to see me and
“Charlie in the changing room. So we went back and as we did the coach drove off and left us in Birmingham! We had to get a taxi back,” – Barnet midfielder Micah Hyde recalls getting owned by ol’ Turniphead.
• “THIS squad is virtually the same as last season so I believe it is good enough to mount a title challenge,” – Rafa Benitez. Need we say more.
Let’s all laugh at the Aussies
EVERYONE gets a bit depressed from time to time. Unlike Michael Jackson’s death, it’s natural.
So after the humorous events of last weekend, BBM has decided to prepare this cut out and keep laughter guide for those times when you get a bit down and need to remind yourself of happier times.
And like the gracious hosts they are, it’s the Australians who are leading the laughter line after producing a year (and a bit) of shocking sporting performances, culminating in last week’s hilarious defeats in the Ashes and Bledisloe Cup respectively.
So, here’s five reasons why the Aussies have made us laugh in the last 12 months (and a bit)…
Laugh 1: WHEN AND WHERE: The Ashes fifth Test at The Oval, last Sunday.
WHY: They only needed a draw. Instead they collapsed like a proverbial pack of cards, giving England a lead of such magnitude that even we couldn’t throw it away.
Whinging Oz cries of “it was a dodgy deck! England cheated!” only made it funnier, especially as their first innings horror show was followed by two decent knocks by both teams.
Laugh 2: WHEN AND WHERE: The Bledisloe Cup, last Saturday.
WHY: The Aussies were within seconds of beating New Zealand in the Tri-nations last weekend, leading by two points with a minute to go. Then they conceded a penalty and Dan Carter slotted it between the sticks to make it 19-18 to the All Blacks. Even better, the Wallabies went straight up the other and could have won with a last-gasp field goal – but instead went wide and fucked it up.
Laugh 3: WHEN AND WHERE: The Beijing Olympics, May 2008.
WHY: More Aussie whinging as Britain hammers them in the medals table – including, shock horror, a few medals in the Aussie holy grail that is swimming.
Apparently we only won because we had a handful of Aussie coaches.
And as we all know, it’s great coaches and managers as opposed to outstanding individual talent that wins gold at the Olympics. That’s why Scotland are so good at football.
Laugh 4: WHEN AND WHERE: The Rugby League World Cup, October.
WHY: Arguably the funniest of the bunch. The Aussies were ludicrously heavy favourites on home turf in a tournament that had thrown up fewer surprises than a Chelsea v Liverpool goalless draw. Expected to steamroller New Zealand in the final, they instead lost convincingly and Oz coach Ricky Stuart threw his toys out of the pram, pushing the ref and accusing him of cheating after the game. Stuart was duly asked to step down. Hahaha!
Laugh 5: WHEN & WHERE: Miss Universe, last Monday.
WHY: On Monday, BBM woke up to every major A
ustralian radio and TV morning show despairing about the Ashes and Bledisloe def
eats – but confident that Miss Universe heavy favourite Rachael Finch would at least give them something to cheer about later on.
She lost to Miss Venezuela.
OK that last one wasn’t sporting related, but it was still funny to see their hopes dashed again. Cherry on the cake and all that.
