So what exactly did Keano say to his players in the Inaugural Roy Keane Motivation Lecture? His Sunderland team were 1-0 down against Derby County at half-time. Was it something as suggestive as, ”I know a couple of fellas…”? Or as simple as, ”Nice kneecaps”? If we’re going by past form, perhaps he pinned the entire team against the wall with one hand and slapped them with the other.

A group of Iraqi and English boys show their elders how to make peace. Clissold Park, Hackney, isn’t the obvious setting for an international peace conference. But here on an improvised football pitch, kids from England and Iraq are learning to live with each other.

I’m drifting off at the Guardian Hay festival as Al Gore tells us how to save the planet — turn off the lights, cut down on private jet trips, listen to me, just about sums up the message. Gore had started off so smart and funny, too — the politician as stand-up comic with a brilliant schtick on failure.

Birmingham 0 Chelsea 0, and 10 minutes to go. I’m trying to distract myself. I run the bath, and then remember I’ve just had one. Pull at my flaking skin. Turn the radio off for good luck. Have a quick jog round the lounge. Stick my fingers in a jar of peanut butter. Eight minutes left, and time is going very slowly.

”Many years ago when nowt but a little lad, as David Blunkett would have it, I used to find myself profoundly moved in the presence of Evonne Goolagong,” writes Simon Hattenstone, who looks at the perversely erotic relationship we have with our sporting heroes. Why can’t straight men say they love their footballers?

Paul Gascoigne stares at the huge crowd curling round staircase after staircase at Waterstones in Newcastle city centre. He is here to sign copies of his autobiography. ”Strange,” he says. ”I used to pinch stuff from here, y’know?” He grins the famous Gazza grin — cheeky, provocative, infuriating, irresistible.