KP's Golden Wonders
Now then. I've been quiet for a fortnight 'cos the wife booked us in to a holiday home in for two weeks. "A gite for a git" is how she rather ungraciously put it.
It's windy, wet and rocky - it's Cornwall with an even funnier accent. I was getting footy updates through me Tees mates and I managed to catch up with Usain Bolt on French TV - well I say 'catch up', that would be impossible - but the rest of their coverage was a tad, well, French.
You'd be two thirds of the way through a semi-final and they'd whizz across to the Water Cube for some ladies with more make-up on their chops than the winner of the 1897 Strumpet of the Year competition doing the synchronised swimming.
Soft target I know, but there's only one word for synchro - and it also starts with "s".
Any road, while the prepare to match the spirit, ability and success of their able-bodied chums in Beijing we have another England international to look forward to.
Well I suppose if you look forward to having a hungover acupuncturist gets to grips with your fingernails, then you'll be agog for . Me? I've got the sofa away from the wall already. The wife's booked a day out in Newcastle fuelling the credit crunch so she can avoid me.
The Andorrans aren't known for their politeness and if Rooney reckons he's going to get through 90 minutes without a nipple tweak, an ankle scrape and a lot of remarks about grandmothers then he's got another thing coming.
But there is another England team who seemed to have turned a complete hairpin faster than (and get off his back by the way - you can't own that club and stay sober).
Since KP took over, . Well, on-the-plane-tired-and-cold-Saffer-beaters any road.
The opposition's been pretty feeble - and they sound like they've walked off the set of a ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Dickens adaptation some of them: "Ah, Mr. Duminy, allow me to introduce you to the charming buffet bowler Mr. Philander."
But "all credit to the lads" as Pietersen would say. Bell and Prior look threatening as openers, Shah should be playing more international cricket, KP's always a menace and the bowlers have done good 'n' all and the batting goes down further than the Dollar against the Euro.
But the real bonus is Flintoff's return with the bat and ball. He looks fitter than and there's nothing better than Freddie doing his talking out on the field - as you can tell when he talks off the field.
The main thing is the team and squad has a balance now. Something . Owen, still the best English goal-hanger since Lineker, is out but Heskey is in.
You'd understand St. Michael's omission if there was another greedy Herbert ready to scuff in a couple from three yards, but there isn't. Having four strikers whose international record suggests that they couldn't hit a from a couple of yards is ridiculous.
And no Crouch either - the only English forward to have any reason to hold his head up after Euro '08 qualification. Instead we've a Sven-like glut of midfielders - Lampard, Bullard... Wellard from Eastenders'll be by the phone for the next announcement.
Capello's left Woodgate and King out and kept Lescott and Upson. The equivalent of a lass reaching past her designer lingerie and pulling out two pairs of big knickers for the night.
Plus, he's picked a captain who wouldn't make a lot of people's first XI. He should have a skipper who is the first name on the teamsheet, like the cricketers have. There's no doubt that is making a huge difference. Can't see anyone in an England football shirt doing that job right now.
Maybe, back in the mists of time, Beckham could do it, but now he's hanging around like a bachelor uncle at a students' party, waiting for the likes of Bentley to politely ask him to leave.
and good on him. Any road Becks has got an important job to do, pressing the football federations for a GB team for 2012.
I'm not saying Capello's selections are as odd as, say, ... the photo of makes the man look horribly like David Gest if you ask me...but I don't think he's got to grips with a side that makes any sense at all.
Maybe it's not the gaffer's fault. Perhaps we are going to have to come to the conclusion that after the golden generation (that was fool's gold, of course) we've got the Hello! generation - glossy, overpriced and not worth looking at.
The cricketers are not in that league of showbiz - by which I mean the IPL - yet, even if my missus seems to think that they've got a damn sight better looking since the days of Gatting and Botham and Border and Boon - you should bloody well hope so or mankind is truly regressing.
But they are finally getting their act together and absolutely trouncing Kallis and co. Ha ha!
So while I'm peeping over the settee for Saturday I'll be comfy with a beer in hand for Wednesday in anticipation of a glorious 5-0 whitewash and the best tonic for English cricket since they ran out of the stuff and had to have the gin neat in 2005.
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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