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A sample from a nice publication Friday 29th July After a fruitless week of mistakenly hoping that my left leg pain would run its course, I reluctantly conceded defeat and set off to the local casualty department. Regrettably, but hardly surprisingly, I wasn't the only person in the locality who had taken refuge at the Causeway Hospital's A&E. I spent three and a half hours from my stint in the waiting-room until I was finally despatched with Ibuprofen and more Paracetamol. I cannot really complain because when you are blessed with the good looks that I have, then one has to make allowances for such inconveniences. Actually, I was treated by an eye-catching doctor (known as 'M-T'). She asked me to take my trousers down so that she could feel my buttocks. If I had known that she was going to get so up close and personal, I would have dressed for the occasion. She also asked me to bend my knee and the little blighter duly bent with no discomfort, yet in the morning when I tried to tie my laces, I was close to rolling on the floor in agony. I had to walk round the floor of my joint for several minutes before I was ready to confront my laces again. Waiting for a prolonged time in casualty at least enables me to engage in a bout of people-watching. It's rather like sitting on a bus or train that isn't moving. In the event I was diagnosed as having a hip inflammation, a legacy of my road-running on a Monday night. Out in the big, bad world, the terrible tabloids have been fined for contempt of court, arising out of their portrayals of police suspect Chris Jefferies which amounted to a drastic character assassination of a man who was neither charged, tried or convicted of anything. However, when the red tops decide that it is open season on any individual, they are liable to tear strips out of their victim, rather like vultures feeding over a carcass. We hear an awful lot about the need for press freedom, but when this freedom manifests itself in such merciless assaults on innocent people, then press regulation cannot arrive quickly enough. The chairperson of the Press Complaints Commission resigned today in the wake of its inability to control the excesses of the press. I guess that Lady Buscombe is/was another overpaid, under-performing individual. Today I sold my first copy of Alone And Asleep four weeks ahead of its publication. It ain't a big breakthrough, but it's “one small step for man.” Finally, the second cricket test began with England losing lots of early wickets against India. It has taken the efforts of the all-rounder Stuart Broad to rescue England. Born on this date: Graham Poll (1963); Jim Beglin (1963) Died on this date: David Niven (1983); Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (1994) Saturday 30th July Please no more cricket, I hear you plead. Sorry pop-pickers, but it's my book and I will write what I want to, write what I want to, write what I want to. You would write too if it happened to you. Yes a milestone occurred at Trent Bridge, Nottingham today when the rejuvenated young firebrand Stuart Broad took a hat-trick of Indian scalps as the tourists lost their last six wickets for only 21 runs. Nevertheless, the tourists still benefit from a healthy first-innings lead of more than sixty runs, courtesy of yet another century from Mr Dependable, alternatively known as Rahul Dravid, the veteran Indian batsman. I have no rugby union news to report, but the England international Mike Tindall married Zara Phillips today. As a British republican who cares little for the England rugby team and even less for the monarchy, may I at least wish them both a happy future. On planet soccer, the England team was remarkably paired yet again with Poland in the draw for the qualifying stages of the next World Cup. The English and the Poles must be joined at the hip, because they are inseparable in the World Cup. The trouble is that Poland and other east European also-rans make England look good in their qualifying group and thus raise false expectations that Ingerland will actually succeed at the next World Cup finals. No such likelihood is yet on the horizon. Funnily enough this is the anniversary of another Saturday in 1966 when England actually conquered the world at soccer. This remains a one-off freak occurrence. The celtic cousins of Scotland and Wales have also been thrust together again in World Cup qualifying, thereby evoking painful Welsh memories of 1977 and 1985 when Scotland qualified for the finals at their expense. At Killarney, the Ulster challenge of Darren Clarke, Graeme McDowell, and Rory McIlroy has surprisingly absented itself from golf's Irish Open. This sunny Saturday also played host to the annual Gay Pride shabang in Belfast. However, as dear old King William of Orange was rumoured to be an awful lot more inclined towards men than his own wife, then presumably the annual Twelfth of July protestant demonstrations by the Orange Disorder can be interpreted as a display of gay pride. In late afternoon, I trooped off to a mobile shop. Fortunately, the mobile shop in question, Carphone Warehouse, remained perfectly still while I was there, enabling me to purchase a second handset at the behest of Choosy Shoesy Claire. Born on this date: Lisa Kudrow (1963); Jason Robinson (1974) Died on this date: Sam Phillips (2003); Michelangelo Antonioni (2007) Sunday 31st July One week after her premature demise, the late Amy Winehouse has returned to the top of the album charts. The success of Back To Black tends to reinforce the theory that death is a good career move. Perhaps I will only succeed as a writer when I am in the grave and then heralded as a brilliant scribe who contributed so much to humanity. Oh please don't get me started on posthumous tributes to people who fail to achieve sufficient recognition whenever they toiled on earth. The classic example of this was the 'failed artist' Vincent Van Gogh whose kudos did not emerge until after his impoverished existence had run its tragic course. Well, it has been a great day for English sport. First of all Jenson Button marked his two hundredth Formula One grand prix outing by winning the Hungarian Grand Prix. However, the runner-up, Sebastian Vettel, still succeeded in extending his championship lead to eighty-five points. Over on the southern shore of the emerald isle, Simon Dyson sneaked home by one shot to triumph in the Irish Open. This was no freak result as Mr Dyson had been prominent on the British Open leaderboard. It's weird how a man from the island of Ireland went over to England to win the British Open while a British guy from England came across the Irish Sea to land the Irish Open. Not only was the Irish challenge peculiarly impotent, but local hero Padraig Harrington has chosen to jettison his coach, the much-respected Bob Torrance. Whether this drastic move returns Padraig to the upper echelons of world golf remains to be seen. Thirdly, Warwickshire's Ian Bell turned the Second Test match on its head with an impressive 159. There were also half-centuries from Morgan and Pietersen and Prior as England slaughtered the Indian bowling with over four hundred runs in one day. Now the current World Number One team are facing a huge task to save the match, after having dominated the first two days. Peculiarly, Bell had been given run out for 137, but common sense was able to prevail as India abandoned their appeal for a run out in spurious circumstances, thereby averting bad feeling between the two combatants. Born on this date: Ahmet Ertegun (1923); Norman Cook (1963) Died on this date: Hedley Verity (1943); Sir Bobby Robson (2009) Right, the curtain is falling on July 2011. It's a month that the Murdochs and News International would presumably like to forget in a hurry. I've had a weird and wonderful month. Okay folks, strap yourselves in and brace yourselves for the slings and arrows of August: Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, Happy August! Monday 1st August I have made an appalling start to August. I went to Superdrug on the quest to purchase some après-rasage and somehow contrived to buy an expensive bottle of shampoo and shower gel. Am I hopeless at shopping? No, not quite. It's more a case of me loathing going round the shops of my home town, and so in a desperate hurry to escape the madding crowd, I am liable to make such mistakes. Actually, what spoils the wondrous shopping experience for me is that clothes shops play the most awful twenty-first century pop music, and one cannot leave the premises quick enough. I also bought a new pair of black pointy shoes. I'm really smitten by them, as this impressionable young man was rather seduced by the shiny metallic black leather. Meanwhile in Blighty, it has been an extraordinarily good couple of days for England's all-conquering cricket heroes. The mighty India have been put to the sword by a margin exceeding three hundred runs. In fact, India's weak resistance in the latter half of the second test was all the more surprising, given that they appeared to have England on the ropes in the first one and a half days of this bizarre contest. Furthermore, today is actually Yorkshire Day (though Heaven knows why) and to mark the occasion, big Tim Bresnan recorded an impressive score of ninety runs and then proceeded to grab his first five-wicket haul in test cricket. In the northern counties of the emerald isle, Patsy McGlone confirmed that he would be challenging Margaret Ritchie as the leader of the Social and Democratic Labour Party. I cannot help but feel that any installation of McGlone would be akin to the Ulster Unionists appointing Tom Elliott. I think that the highly-articulate 'mouth from the south' Conaill McDevitt is a more suitable candidate. Sorry Mr McGlone, but the SDLP would be far better off electing Patsy Kensit rather than Patsy McGlone. I have had to stay indoors tonight and abstain from running on doctor's orders. Initially when
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