22/02/10 - SSN news update...

The Mirror's Darren Lewis held the reigns of this morning's sports pages review.

If we were being unkind to Darren we'd describe him as 'a bit boring', but let's cut him some slack and say he's 'slightly less bullshitty' than, say, Steve '5 chins' Curry.

First up was comment on affairs at Chelsea concerning Shagger Cole. He's about to be hit with a "club record fine" of £400K, all at the behest of Roman Abramovich. This is because, apparently, "no player is above the law". Darren didn't divulge which specific law Cole had broken, and there was no mention of if this law applied to other players, including John Terry.

We were then treated to snaps of England's unfinished SA World Cup training camp. It looks unfinished. Still, with 15 weeks to go you'd hope they might have enough time to get it finished. Not according to Darren. He's seen builders in action before. I'm guessing he's had Vance Miller's kitchen fitters round, so he would know. Potential quote of the day goes to Darren's unnamed SA building source who reckons "there's more chance of a man getting pregnant than the complex being ready in time".

If I was a gambling man I'd be prepared to take Darren on here, at any price above even money.

Today's other burning question is "where is Carlos Tevez?". He's in Argentina Darren, probably quite concerned about the welfare of his 6 weeks premature daughter in intensive care.

But Darren knows this, and thinks "he should take as long as he likes". Mainly because he reckons City have "ordered Tevez to return". It's hard to keep up with exactly what Darren thinks sometimes.

Finally, onto a couple of my favourite 'news' items on SSN:

'TEAM SKY' (or one of their riders, I have no idea how it works) have finished 9th in some cycle race you've never heard of. This was after finishing 8th in the final stage. One of their other riders managed 15th. We are not told who finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th or 8th so it's difficult to gauge how much of a success this actually is, but I'm guessing there must have been some pretty impressive competition for them to get so excited about 9th.

And then there's the surf report. Head high waves on the north coast of Scotland, "Ideal surfing conditions" apparently. Have these people never been to the north of Scotland? I wouldn't risk the north sea in August up there, but if they want to go surfing in February, please do. Naked. You cocks.