This sporting life

I fell in love with a little green scooter. "When I was your age I walked every- where," my mum said.

According to the Times, many sociologists end up as terrorists. Even worse. according to KEITH WATERHOUSE, many of them end up as sociologists.

For ail Britain's boast that it is the world's master of ceremonial, I am of the mind that we throw away a Joad of possibilities when it cornes to Sport. Take the beginning of the cricket season a couple of weeks ago at Lord's; at 10.47 on that bleak Wednesday morning a smattering of us were in frozen attendance in front of the Tavern when two middle-aged men in white coats emerged form the pavilion, placed the bails in position, stooped low .

If Tony Greig says once more that he joined Mr Packer "for the sake of cric- ket", I shall take an overdose of something-like reading every night, for a hundred nights, extracts of Geoff Boycott's modest thoughts on how well he thought he did in Pakistan and New Zealand as the England captain-and how he wanted to continue in his new-found role.

Sometimes you know you've said the wrong thing. Like yes when you meant no. I said yes, I'd go to South London and see how they were doing up at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre these days. And then I realised why I should have said no. I don't like organised sport. I don't care for South London, with its dying railway stations and its municipal parks falling sideways downhill. And anyway, there's something quite sinister about the old Crystal Palace site, with its tarted-up prehistoric figures in the boating lake, and its children's lavatories disguised as twee rural cottages. I realised that I'd rather spend a day at Wormwood Scrubs.