Tonight:
5°c
This is not an era in national life when the chance to write "I envy the Prime Minister because" presents itself very often, but here is one of those rare and precious opportunities. I envy the Prime Minister because, rather than having endlessly to repeat the same tedious remarks, he can simply say "I refer the Honourable Member to the answer I gave some moments ago".
Lucky Gordon. If I were to begin this item with the words "I refer the Honourable Reader to the Spurs piece I wrote some months ago", and leave the space blank for readers' notes, unlike the PM, I wouldn't have to wait another 22 months for the sack.
Anyone with the uncanny staying power required to plough through this column year after year will be wearily familiar with the item in which words such as "incompetence", "fiasco" and "shambles" jostle for space with such other words as "Daniel", "Levy", "Tottenham" and "chairman". But so long as it remains Groundhog Day at White Hart Lane, the repetitive cycle that spins the club like once gorgeous but now grey and tatty lingerie in a washing machine will be reflected here.
A year ago, it was Levy's response to what has become Tottenham's proudest modern tradition. After losing the opening games of the season, he flew to Seville to offer Juande Ramos, who must now be asking himself 20 times an hour what on earth he was thinking in eventually accepting it, Martin Jol's job.
The year before that, the article revolved around Levy reprising the fiascoid error that plagues the club still - his passion for placing a "sporting director" with loyalties solely to him in tension, if not actual conflict, with the manager.
David Pleat and Glenn Hoddle gave way to Frank Arnesen and Jacques Santini, and via Damien Comolli and Jol we now have Comolli and Ramos.
What part Comolli played in the fiasco of Spurs starting the season with only Darren Bent - a useful player, admittedly, if he stuck to friendlies - I cannot say.
So reticent is this grim-faced Frenchman that nothing more than vague rumour is ever heard of him.
Palpably, though, it was Levy who caused this current shambles by instigating and perpetuating the imbecile war with Manchester United over allegations of precisely the same offence of tapping up, of Dimitar Berbatov, that enticed Levy to Seville a year ago.
His incessant faux-outraged bleating about the very sin he so famously committed himself is remarkable, and how a man could emerge from Cambridge with a first-class degree, even in Land Economy, yet without a shred of self-awareness is beyond me.
Whatever the result of this weekend's frantic shopping trip to Monte Carlo - and those Russian transfer targets would be wiser to stroll into the Kremlin wearing "Free Georgia" T-shirts than to join Spurs - it has taken the usual two games for that mythical surge towards a Champions League spot to be postponed. Yet again an air of farcical crisis - one unlikely to be lifted on Sunday at Chelsea, with or without Robinho - cements Tottenham's status as Manchester City's laughing stock partners here in the soft south.
I've said it before (there's a shock) and I will say it again, but almost invariably infinitely much the most important individual at a club is the one ultimately responsible for hiring everybody else; or in the case of Levy's phantasmal strikeforce, not hiring anyone at all. That long mooted sale of Spurs cannot come soon enough.
Best wishes, Mick, I hope you're horsing around once again soon
My best wishes to Mick Channon for a quick and full recovery after the M1 crash that took the life of the bloodstock agent Tim Corby.
I got to know Mick about seven years ago when, in an act of astounding idiocy even by my standards, I bought a half-share in a two-year-old racehorse.
Mick was his trainer and every few weeks we'd drive to Newbury for an update on Hattington's progress. "Lovely 'orse," he'd lie. "Grubs up nice."
"I'm thrilled he's eating well," I'd say. "But any idea when he might run?" "Four to six weeks."
"Lovely 'orse, grubs up nice," was the verdict on our next visit. "Be ready in four to six weeks."
And so it went on, until finally Hattington had his first outing at Brighton at the great age, for an equine debutant, of four. There was no trademark windmill celebration that day and in lieu of training fees we gave him to Mick, who farmed him out to a minor local trainer.
A while later, on seeing Hattington listed in a paper as a winner at the gratifying odds of 33-1, I rang Mick to remonstrate. "Sorry," he said. "I forgot to tell you he was running."
There aren't many people I could forgive but Mick Channon is one of them and I hope he is up and about soon, and grubbin' up once again.
It could be game, set and match to Murray
For a short but uncomfortable while last night, there was the surreal prospect that the last British player in the US Open singles would be female.
How Anne Keothavong has won two Grand Slam matches on foreign soil is a mystery beyond my deductive powers, but when Andy Murray dropped the second set 6-1 to Frenchman Michael Llodra, she looked a decent bet to be our sole third-round representative.
Barring a sniper's bullet, Anne will lose in straight sets to Olympic champion Elena Dementieva, but Murray should progress to and beyond the fourth round.
His performance yesterday was patchy, but his new maturity saw him through.
Given his brilliant form on US hard courts he must now be regarded not just as a likely semi-finalist, but even may God forgive me for this hubris, as a potential winner.
Poulter's arrogance is no joke
Ian Poulter becomes ever harder to love, for his conceit as much as that penchant for comical trouserware.
Showing the arrogance that persuaded him to place himself in a league of two with Tiger Woods, Poulter has declined the chance to go for an automatic Ryder Cup place at Gleneagles this weekend by playing in the United States instead.
Poulter has vehemently denied it, but if captain Nick Faldo has promised him a wildcard spot, please God he means to indulge that mischievous sense of humour by ringing Poulter on Sunday to say: "Just my little joke, Ian. I'm going for Monty, instead."
Colin Montgomerie is in anything but peak form but he is the greatest Ryder Cup player of recent times. And even if he shouldn't be rewarded for past glories, I'd much rather see Monty having strops at the American crowd and losing matches than watch Poulter poncing about in those idiotic trousers and winning them.
