Slack Jawed Babbling

Turn your back for a week and it all happens. Whilst I’ve been successfully dodging showers in the Peak District in between a couple of great weekends in God’s Own County, sport has been spilling over into front page news again. As we were driving up the A1(M) somewhere near Doncaster last Saturday, the Pietersen text and twitter tales were still rumbling on. This man is a headline grabber par excellence. At the time, I was willing Jonny Bairstow towards his maiden test ton. My phone, with its cricket app jammed open, was slipping out of my sweaty palms and I was explaining to Mrs A about   Jonny’s father, David and his tragic suicide, and just how much this hundred might mean to the family and to the general cricket loving population. I watched Bairstow senior play on many occasions. I can still recall the shock of hearing about his death in 1998. I was on a Tenerifan holiday enjoying 90 degrees of heat that did nothing to melt the chill that swept through me. ...

The Games are over and I’m doing cold turkey. To keep the adrenaline surging, here are my favourite mainstream and off-beat highlights. 1. FlyMo This is an entirely predictable choice to head the list. But unashamedly so. Mo Farah, the brilliant Somaliland Londoner joined a small band of truly great British runners on an emotional final night of athletics when he brought home the 5,000m gold to add to his memorable 10,000m victory the week before. On that first Super Saturday we had been in the Olympic Park and were still tripping on exhilaration by the time we got home to watch Mo’s race. Something about being exposed to the highly charged atmosphere of the Games had turned Mrs A into a distance running tactical genius. After only a couple of laps, she was belting out considered advice to Farah about his track position and pace. “What are you doing back there? Get up amongst them!” It clearly worked. For the 5,000m final, we were at Granny’s. There is obviously somet...