Morning:
9°c
Foreign body won't be an irritant at Reds
English football prepares to welcome its most influential thinker from the Italian Far Right since Paolo Di Canio.
Alberto Aquilani, Liverpool's Mussolini statue-owning signing from Roma, insists that he knows nothing about politics (like that ever worried Seb Coe), but that's pure false modesty from the man who always makes his training runs on time.
He certainly has some trenchant views on migration.
"There are too many foreigners in the country," Alberto pronounced last year, before concluding that mass migration is acceptable after all so long as the destination is the Premier League.
No doubt his adopted city, where they haven't thrown bananas at black players since the early days of John Barnes, will educate Alberto that here at least all are welcome.
BBC turning Mihir's exit into comedy of errors
I am saddened by the sarcastic tinge to Mihir Bose's insistence that his abrupt departure as BBC sports editor was for "personal reasons".
This is the literal truth. Mihir, personally, couldn't stomach the prospect of moving to Salford with the rest of the BBC sport - and given Hazel Blears's presence as local MP, who will cast the first stone there?
It may be true that Mihir never looked at ease in front of the cameras but one rumour is false.
There is no truth that the BBC is demanding a full refund for the media training course that Mihir took from the company run by BBC1 controller Jay Hunt's husband.
Strictly speaking it has every right to, but sometimes the wise thing to do is take the hit and move on.
Cricket's now a funny old game with TMS
The revival of Test Match Special under newish editor Adam Mountford gathers pace.
TMS was on cracking form during the Egbaston Test, one highlight being Jonathan Agnew's Saturday lunchtime chat with Simon Williams.
The actor is an absolute charmer and the interview was a delight. I especially loved the introduction.
"Simon," Aggers told us, "is one of the most recognizable faces on British television." And so he is to middle-aged nostalgists who watch 35-year-old repeats of Upstairs, Downstairs when there's no cricket on air.
I'm not sure about the rest of the population, but thank God for one media institution that shows no interest in pandering to the young folk.
Harrington makes his case for being a Brit
Padraig Harrington's hideous collapse last night at the death of the World Golf Championship in Ohio was all too familiar to close followers of golf.
A triple bogey on the 16th, when leading eventual winner Tiger Woods, may have the numerical edge over Colin Montgomerie's double bogey at the last in the 2007 US Open, and Lee Westwood's single dropped shot at the final hole at Turnberry last month, but the pattern is clear enough.
The Dubliner's Anglophilia does him credit, but if he wants a British passport that badly, surely he'd find it less painful to apply in the conventional manner?
