Ronaldo = no-lardo

So says Carlo Ancelotti, the AC Milan manager, as he welcomed the Brazilian back to Italy following his four and a half year Spanish sojourn.

Ronaldo - formerly of Milan's bitter rivals Internazionale - completed his £5,000,000 transfer to the Rossoneri this afternoon, following David Beckham out of the Bernabéu exit door.

"Ronaldo is not fat," said Ancelotti. "He is a very robust player. I think his problem is the fact that in recent times, he has not had much motivation.

"From a physical point of view, he hasn't trained much because he has been excluded from Real Madrid's team and he has lost motivation in training.

"But he remains a great player. In the last five years at Real, he has scored almost 100 goals. No one in the world has done that."

Amen to that, Carlo! Let's all pray that slim enjoys better luck at the San Siro this time around than he did with the Nerazzurri.

And it's goodbye from them ...

So, after 48 years and some 3,500 episodes, Grandstand has drawn it's last breath.

In homage to the great show, some archive footage (below) - in black and white, of course!



And now for the final time, the iconic theme tune that heralded the start of many a Saturday afternoon spent lazing on the couch:



Grandstand (1959-2007)

Haas-ta la vista, Tommy!!!

Fernando Gonzalez went two better than Roger Federer in swatting away Tommy Haas 6-1, 6-3, 6-1 - conceding only four games en-route to Sunday's showdown with the Swiss.

Gonzalez looked imperious as he swept aside the twelfth seeded German, hitting an incredible 42 winners compared to just 3 unforced errors, and on serve the Chilean was no less clinical - 9 aces and no double faults.

    

In the women's draw, meanwhile, no. 1 seed Maria Sharapova (top left) will be seeking to deny Serena Williams (top right) a hat-trick of Australian Open titles.

Watch both finals live: Sharapova v Williams on BBC One (Saturday 2:30am); Federer v Gonzalez on BBC Two (Sunday 8:30am)

Federer express

Roger Federer stormed into the Australian Open final with a 6-4, 6-0, 6-2 thrashing of US hit-man Andy Roddick.

Federer stunned the American number one to reach a record equalling seventh successive grand slam final - winning their semi-final in under an hour and a half.

In a sizzling display of faultless tennis the Swiss hit an incredible 45 winners to Roddick's 11 and even managed to fire down twice as many aces as his big serving opponent - 10:4.

Here are the other statistics that'll put the frighteners up either Fernando Gonzalez or Tommy Haas, who square up tomorrow to determine who'll be Federer's whipping boy in the final:

• 7/7 - The top seed's conversion rate of break points

• 15 - Number of games the trimphant 25-year-old won out of the last 17 in semi-final victory

• 11/11 - Federer's run of games on the spin from the end of the first set to the beginning of the third

• 20 - Number of points the Swiss lost in the final two sets

• 13:1 - The world number one's overall record against Roddick

What odds now a triple bagel whitewash in the final!?! ;)

Watch highlights of Federer v Roddick and live streaming of
Gonzalez v Haas on the BBC Sport website.

London 2012 - 2012 days to go and counting ...

Just 5.5 years; we're a mere 67 months away from the greatest city on Earth hosting the greatest show on Earth.

Let's sock it to the cynics and make it a success!!! Can't wait! ;)

Fright at the museum

Arsenal 2-1 Manchester United

It was doubles all round as the Emirates finally came alive with Arsenal scoring twice in the last ten minutes to win their 200th meeting against Man Utd and do the double over the league leaders.

Robin van Persie and who else but Thierry Henry - with 93.5 minutes on the clock - took advantage of some shoddy United defending to cancel out Wayne Rooney's earlier headed goal and win a thrilling game in N5.

Here are the goals from today's match:



The victory took the Gunners to within six points of second place Chelsea, who crashed to a 2-0 defeat at Anfield, undone by a sound finish from Dirk Kuyt (below left) and a stunning strike by Jermaine Pennant (below right):

    

Liverpool are now a mere five points adrift of Chelsea, blowing the race for runner-up wide open; United, meanwhile, remain odds-on for the title in spite of their defeat - six points clear of the Blues and with a vastly superior goal difference.

Watch highlights of all the weekend's Premiership matches on
Match of the Day, tonight on BBC One at 10:45.

Good old Dennis!

From the beast of Bolsover, the Rt. Hon. Dennis Skinner MP, slapping down Channel Four and Celebrity Big Brother in the House of Commons earlier today:

"If Channel Four wish to continue taking public money they need to drop crap programmes like Big Brother."

'Ave it!!! More Simpsons, sport and satire; less shite!

Beauty and the beeyatch

    

A modern day tale of a beautiful, intelligent, talented young lady who finds herself thrust into a human zoo alongside the dregs of society - Jade Goody and her family, topless model Danielle Lloyd and some minger called Jo.

The plotline? Our beauty (Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty) is mercilessly bullied and racially abused by said low-life, driven to the brink of despair by the beeyatch (Jade), her mother (Jackiey), boyfriend (Jack "Boot") and the ugly sisters (Danielle and former "singer" Jo O'Meara).

    

And the moral of the story is ... good shall, hopefully, overcome evil. So get voting! Evict the scum and elect the star!!!

Chavs: know your limits.

Hersch: sinner or sinned against?

South Africa batsman Herschelle Gibbs has been banned for two Tests for the use of racist language during the First Test of the series with Pakistan. He was suspended after his comments were picked up by a stump microphone on day four at Centurion and broadcast live on TV.

Gibbs is reported to have referred to a group of rowdy Pakistan supporters as "a bunch of bloody animals" and "f***ing Pakistanis" in response to extreme provocation from sections of the crowd who were seen making monkey noises and shouting derograty chants of "baboon" at his black teammates.

The incident is the latest in a long line of controversy that has engulfed both sides. A year ago, South Africa's players were subjected to racist abuse on their tour of Australia - so severe that Proteas captain Graeme Smith voiced his concern for England's Monty Panesar - fearing the Sikh would be the victim of similar abuse during the Ashes.

Pakistan's supporters, meanwhile, have long had a reputation for causing trouble, especially when their team are underperforming. I remember an incident during the NatWest Series of 2001, when Pakistan had just been trounced by Australia in identical fashion to the their World Cup Final defeat two years previously.

    

Michael Bevan, celebrating on the Lords balcony, got hit flush on the face by a full can of beer by an angry Pakistan fan. Leaving aside the irony of a Muslim hurling a can of Victoria Bitter - imported from Down Under - at an Aussie cricketer, it was a disgraceful incident to all who saw it, a damning indictment of the lunatic fringe who follow Pakistan.

While the headlines will be grabbed by Gibbs's outburst, I feel the supporters who goaded him should not get off scot free. Lastly, a plea to all those reading this article: please don't be tempted into using lazy, outdated stereotypes about "'typical' racist South Africans"; after all, name another country with so diverse a line-up - of religion, race and background ...

Wolfie roars back just in the Nix of time

Martin Adams became the oldest ever darts world champion after putting a halt to one of the most remarkable comebacks in sporting history.

The England captain and world number one let slip a 6-0 lead to 150/1 outsider and fellow 50-year-old Phil Nixon before winning the final set
3-0, checking out for glory on his fifth match point.

Adams had raced away at the beginning, blitzing the first six sets in under an hour - teeing himself up for the first ever whitewash in a final - only to lose the next six to one of the most amazing comebacks ever witnessed.

    

Nixon, playing in his first world championships after 20 years of failing to qualify and having squared the match at 12-12, couldn't quite pull it off in the decider, Adams re-finding his form to clinch a memorable 7-6 victory - completing an English clean sweep following Trina Gulliver's seventh straight title.

Excitement, passion, pulses racing, unbearable tension, edge of the seat action, a thrilling fightback, David frightening the life out of Goliath, ... yes, darts can definitely considered itself a sport!

"Peace" isn't merely the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice; only war can bring global justice

    

The Prime Minister today made a passionate defence of his interventionist foreign policy, saying Britain "must continue to fight wars".

Mr Blair's wide-ranging speech on board HMS Albion off the Plymouth coast came in the wake of President Bush's State of the Union address in which he pledged to increase troop levels in Iraq.

Tony Blair spoke of the continued need for an attack strategy, that military action should'nt be confined merely to peacekeeping or the defence of one's borders.

At the heart of the Blair strategy - from Sierra Leone and Kosovo through to Afghanistan and Iraq - is the pursuit of justice, whether or not it is explicitly in the national interest, allied to the defeat of Islamic terrorism wherever it rears its ugly head.

Milosevic & Saddam were and al-Qaeda & the Taleban still are dangerous, evil, menacing forces. Threats both to their own people and the wider world, not one tear should be shed, not one regret expressed at their defeat.

Sierra Leonians, Kosovan Muslims, Iraqis, Afghan women ... surely these people deserve justice? What kind of men would we be if we were to walk by on the other side of the road and leave them to their own devices in countries far, far away, left to wither and die at the heel of some of the vilest regimes in history.

Torture, murder, rape. Justice? No. How about giving these people democracy, freedom, liberty, the right to determine one's own future, to live by one's own beliefs: the rights we enjoy but are denied to many.

We are all human beings, and as the great John Fitgerald Kennedy once said "we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal". We are our brothers' keepers.



And as the sun sets on Tony Blair's Premiership, it can only be hoped that his legacy is a British foreign policy that puts doing the right thing at its heart, a truly ethical, moral and just foreign policy which coupled with the amendment of the Treaty of Westphalia and a reformed United Nations will set the world free.

It may take ten, fifty or a hundred years for freedom to engulf the globe, but however long it takes I passionately believe that as one of the architects of real peace, history will look upon the PM favourably; he will be made righteous.

Kelvin McKenzie: a nasty piece of work

Did you see Question Time last night? 'Cos I didn't! ;) Kelvin McKenzie was on the panel, attempting to wriggle out of his shameful position on Hillsborough.

Quite ridiculously, McKenzie chose to blame the Liverpool fans themselves for the 1988 disaster - accusing ticketless supporters of ramming the turnstiles and those inside the stadium of pick-pocketing dead bodies and attacking police.

Here is the original Sun front page (below left) from 19 years ago which McKenzie was responsible for, and the reaction of the Liverpool Echo (below right):

    

McKenzie still refuses to say sorry ...

Watch McKenzie's pathetic ramblings in full on the Question Time website until next Thursday (18th January).

Record-breaker Boucher on the Mark

Mark Boucher today broke the record for most Test catches, surpassing Aussie great Ian Healy with two scalps in Pakistan's first innings of the First Test at Centurion.

Boucher held on when Faisal Iqbal gloved a ball off Jaques Kallis to claim catch number 367 - one more than Healy. Including stumpings, it took the keeper's tally to 382, passing Healy's successor Adam Gilchrist into second place in the list of most prolific wicket-keepers.

To make Boucher's day complete it was also the 30-year-old's 100th Test appearance, the third keeper and fourth South African to achieve a hundred caps.

    

As well as being a great gloveman, Boucher also delivers in front of the stumps - over 7,000 international runs and four Test centuries - streets ahead of anything England have to offer at the moment.

Anyone for chicken?

Sydney, Twenty20 International: England 144/9 (Dalrymple 32, Nixon 31*; Hilfenhaus 2-16, Symonds 2-24) lost to Australia 221/5 (Gilchrist 48, Ponting 47, White 40*, Symonds 39*; Panesar 2-40) by 77 runs

Australia smashed two more world records en route to yet another crushing defeat of England, scoring the highest innings total and bludgeoning the most sixes ever in an international twenty-20 match.

Though both teams made five changes to their Test XIs it was Australia who made the smoother transition to the short form of the game, plundering 14 sixes to England's one.

England not once looked like winning, from Matty Hayden's 8-ball 20 through to Cameron White's 20-ball 40, aided and abetted by James Anderson's woeful spell of four overs for 64 runs at 16 an over - the worst ever bowling analysis in a twenty-20 international.

In reply, returning captain Michael Vaughan and debutant Paul Nixon put it about but an asking rate in excess of 11 runs per over proved too great a hurdle to overcome.



Be it five day tests or 40 over slogathons, England are still without a win on this tour - something which needs to change if they're to avoid abject humiliation in the forthcoming tri-series and World Cup.

Here is the full scorecard and report from cricinfo, and listen live to England v Australia from the MCG - the first match of the tri-series against Australia and New Zealand - this Friday on Radio 4 198LW and the BBC Sport website from 3:00am.

They jink ...

    

... it's all over!



Sydney, Fifth Test, Fourth Day:
Australia 393 & 46/0 (Hayden 23*, Langer 20*) beat England
291 & 147 (McGrath 3-38, Lee 3-39) by ten wickets;
Australia win the series 5-0 and reclaim the Ashes

England suffered the first Ashes whitewash for 86 years, and only the ninth 5-0 drubbing in Test history following their 250th Test defeat.

For Australia it was their twelfth Test win in a row - surpassing the 11 successive victories of the great West Indies side of the eighties and just four adrift of their own record run of 16 wins on the bounce at the turn of the millennium.

    

Glen McGrath, as so often in his Test career, led the Baggy Green to glory - snaring Kevin Pietersen to the third ball of the morning, knocking back Sajid Mahmood's off stump and wrapping up the innings by dismissing James Anderson - thwarting Shane Warne's bid to become the first cricketer to claim wickets with his first and last Ashes deliveries.

Mahmood's wicket was the 1,000th Test dismissal they've taken when playing together, McGrath ending up with 563 wickets, the most by a fast bowler, and Warne finishing up on 708 from 145 Tests - the most capped bowler and most successful wicket taker.

Cricket the world over will be all the poorer for their departure, of that there is no doubt.



The last rites were administered by Matthew Hayden and the other retiree Justin Langer - fittingly so since the two Australia openers were tottering about on the Oval outfield, hapless, helpless and faintly embarrassed when England won the Ashes that memorable September evening a mere 16 months ago ...

For highlights, stats and reaction to England's fourth 5-0 humiliation, check out Cricinfo and the BBC Sport websites.

The day Matthew Parris lost the plot

    

Take a look at this self-deluded diatribe from the pompuous, preachy Times columnist Matthew Parris.

Pop quiz, Matthew: if you're so damn clever, and know all the answers to everything, how come you never became Tory leader? In fact, how come you never even became a Minister!?!

Oh, the irony! ;)

"Worst England side ever!"

Sydney, Fifth Test, Third Day: England 291 & 114/5 (Clark 2-29, Lee 2-34) v Australia 393 (Warne 71, Gilchrist 62, Symonds 48; Anderson 3-98)

England allowed the last five Australia wickets to put on more than 200 as they surrendered their early advantage to all but guarantee a 5-0 humiliation at the SCG.

Shane Warne top scored for the Aussies in what looks certain to be his final Test innings - smashing two sixes and nine fours in his 65 ball 71 - falling narrowly short of a memorable farewell century.

    

It was not only the weight of runs but the rate at which they were scored that done for England, allied to some shoddy fielding and shocking bowling - Warne surviving an easy run-out chance an over in and being permitted to smash his first two balls for 10 runs.

If that wasn't bad enough England's top order failed again with the bat - losing their opening five wickets for less than 125 runs for the sixth time this series - well below par and one suspects the reason for picking the tail primarily on their batting ability earlier in the campaign.



Andrew Flintoff's stumping just before the close was the nail in the coffin for England, effectively 12 for 5 overnight and just hours away from being declared the "worst England side ever" by the fattest man in Springfield: Comic Book Guy!

Catch the third day's highlights tonight on BBC Two at 11:20, and listen to live coverage of day three on Radio 4 198LW and the
BBC Sport website from 11:10 - 20 minutes early.

JR: on the money

    

No, not JR Ewing, but John Reid, the Home Secretary, who today called on the Labour Party to keep moving forward - that it must "remain New Labour to the core".

Dr Reid's stern warning came hot on the heels of the Prime Minister's new year message, in which he said the only way the Labour Party would win a fourth term in power was "provided it continues to be New Labour".

Britain forward not back: that's the platform on which the Labour Party won an unprecedented third election victory in a row; let's never return to the kind of party certain imbeciles want to see ...



... I've said it before and I'll say it again:-
"Old" Labour = "out of power" Labour.

Sorry Saddam, but I don't think your dying wish for a John McDonnell Premiership will come to pass! ;)

Warney's just grand!

Sydney, Fifth Test, Second Day: Australia 188/4 (Ponting 45; Harmison 2-34) v England 291 (Flintoff 89, Bell 71; Clark 3-62, McGrath 3-67, Lee 3-75)

England lost their last six wickets for only 46 runs - the five tail-enders adding just four between them - as Australia re-asserted their superiority at the SCG.

Shane Warne took the final wicket to fall - trapping Monty Panesar plum in front to pick up his 1,000th international wicket in his penultimate innings in the field, with pacemen Glen McGrath, Stuart Clark and Brett Lee bagging three wickets apiece.



Andrew Flintoff's knock aside, the only other bright spot for England on a sunny Sydney Wednesday was James Anderson running out Ricky Ponting, bringing back memories of the infamous Gary Pratt run-out during the last Ashes series:



Whatever did happen to the hilariously named Pratt after his 15 seconds of fame!?!

Catch the second day's highlights tonight on BBC Two at 11:20, and listen to live coverage of day three on Radio 4 198LW and the
BBC Sport website from 11:00 - 30 minutes early.

Bell rings in the new year

Sydney, Fifth Test, First Day:
England 234/4 (Bell 71; McGrath 2-57) v Australia

Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen shared a century stand to rescue England on day one of the final Test, coming together at 58 for 2 and griniding out the runs on an uninspiring day at the SCG.

England had again got off on the wrong foot - Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook once more failing to give them a flying start - their ninth consecutive sub-fifty opening stand.

Aside from Bell's half-century Pietersen (41) and Andrew Flintoff, unbeaten on 42, contibuted to the cause once play finally got under way over an hour late; indeed all the England batsmen got themselves in, with all bar Bell failing to kick-on past fifty.



And what of the three retirees? Glen McGrath bagged two key wickets in five balls - Pietersen and then Bell - while Shane Warne sent down 19 wicketless overs and Justin Langer dropped a catch!

But with the new ball due first thing in the morning England may well end up getting cleaned out for less than 300 ...

Catch the first day's highlights tonight on BBC Two at 11:20, and listen to live coverage of day two on Radio 4 198LW and the BBC Sport website from 11:15 - 15 minutes early.

And now, the end is near ...

So here we are, just hours away from the final Test appearance of two of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game.

Showmen to the very end, they've chosen the perfect platform on which to bow out - with the prospect of an historic 5-0 whitewash of England in the offing!

It's doubtful whether we'll ever see their like again, that in future fate will be so kind as to allow numbers 1 and 3 in the list of Test wicket takers to play over 100 matches together.

Any milestones remaining? For Warney, one more wicket will take him to 1,000 international wickets; for McGrath, one more scalp and he gets to 900. How's that for coincidence?!? And for them both, the chance to make history with only the second ever Ashes clean sweep.

And so they face the final curtain, but more, much more than this,



They did it theeeeiiirrrr way!

Listen live to full coverage of day one of the Fifth Test on Radio 4 198LW and the BBC Sport website from 11:00.