Here's to axed Pleat, a master of mediocrity

It is with barely consolable grief that we read of David Pleat's departure from ITV, where he raised telly punditry to heights never previously scaled without the use of perception-altering drugs.

Thankfully, there is no word that Radio 5Live has also had its fill. God willing it never will, because who else could have responded to Tottenham's 3-4 FA Cup defeat to a Man City side trailing 0-3 at half time and a man short - a unique occurrence in global football history - by blithely observing: "these things happen in football"?

There are so many other happy memories - especially the legendary Raddy Antic lollop across the Maine Road pitch. Gone from ITV? Perhaps. Forgotten? Never!

Let's put Warne's Bell baiting into context

While Shane Warne is shaping into a fine commentator on Sky, his unbridled larrikin chutzpah becomes wearing.

He keeps reminding us that he nicknamed the recalled Ian Bell "the Sherminator" after a character in American Pie.

For the high-minded, that's a comic movie about adolescents trying to have sex, mostly with unwilling girls but in one case with the bakery product of the title.

If any cricket figure should avoid smutty sexual references, it's a man who long before Twitter was doing the field work for his reference book The Joy of Text.

Ian's got Wooly bang to naming Wrights

This Sherminator business leads the Independent to produce a guide to the cruellest nicknames in Sport.

Among them are such classics as Mrs Doubtfire for the busty Colin Montgomerie, Trigger for Jason McAteer, and the witty Dissa for former Everton defender Neil Pointon.

Our favourite, however, which is omitted, was given not by a hack to a sportsman but vice versa.

It was Ian Wright who called the Daily Star's esteemed football man Brian Woolnough "Bison Head"... an identification as hilariously esoteric as it is uncannily accurate. Go to Google Images to discover why.