Writhing haplessly in a career of topless radio broadcasting Bernard's fortune took a turn for the worse when his show was axed, his wife left him and his car re-possessed. Relief was at hand though when Joe the barman at his local ‘Flagon of Choice' slipped him a free range pickled egg on the house.

            ‘If opportunity knocks on your door, don't knock it,' said Bennie Green in a serendipitous game show way back when powdered eggs were the norm in a ration governed fifties. Luck can pay a visit in many guises, often when you're least expecting it. But then some of the more stoic will profess that luck is borne out of what you make of a situation, which is true to some extent because if Bernard hadn't have gone to his local that night there would have been no free-gratis pickled egg for him - was it luck or endurance?

            To rely on luck would be futile but probability states that enough stabs at it reaps a reward, therefore a certain state of mind will increase your chances of winning, and you never know, one day you might get the chicken!

            Down at Saigon South Last weekend the troops of the Int. touch rugby brigade gathered to put on an earnest display of a hopefully luck induced array of skill and perseverance. I say hopefully because the weather was hotter than Joe the barman's tip for Daniel Day-Lewis winning an Oscar in the ‘03' awards, and anyone in the state of mind to put in some hard graft were clearly not in a right state of mind.

            Nevertheless play got underway with rapturous commitment and heading the charge of devotion was Grant ‘stretch armstrong' Elder who competed for every intercept ball with vision and tenacity. Travis ‘you're my little puppy now' Wedge matched him on the dedication stakes when he chased down the full flight Grant to save a try.

            Play soon settled to letting the ball do the work and between the likes of Pat ‘no luck required' Weinhold and ‘time is on my side' Johan ran onto the passes to gain ground and momentum, often being fed by Ian "I'll just try this reverse pass' Private Ryan and that magician of tact Steve ‘auspicious' Carty.

 Helping them with the flowing game were Florent ‘le high capes' Brunet and Marc ‘plain old Le Frog' who threw the ball around with the same excitement as their Gaul-ish banter, sometimes this worked then again sometimes they just swore at each other.

The ladies having an up and coming game thought to get together for a tad of men grilling and this at times they did well with Sabrina ‘poised' Manhart at the helm directing traffic like someone who knows what she's talking about and working to her quirks was Emma ‘you feeling lucky' Petheybridge, who's speed is doubling at the rate of a yard a week, she proved this when a long distant chase nearly charged down the surprisingly very quick Pat. Unsurprisingly Pat came off as sub, but Emma kept on going as did the rest of the ladies showing class, fitness and tactical awareness.

Sally ‘Advantage' Prickett came deep in off the wings and caused problems with her speed as did JRJ with the kind of shoe-shine shuffle that just makes you want to grab a top hat and cane and have an impromptu musical. Amanda ‘as luck would have it, not a Daley yet' composed herself with a calm deliberateness and kept the ball going forward, and curving her way into a great understanding of the lines of attack was Amanda ‘luck of the American-Irish!' O'Neil.

Meanwhile over on the other paddock Brian ‘jinxed by the jink' Paterson beat 47 players off of his left foot then sprinted into the horizon hounded by the ever persistent Sean ‘thank God it's touch' Deleu. Quickly up to disperse the ball was Alistair ‘favoured' MacFie who spun it right through the hands of Mark ‘opportune' Exton, Brian ‘propitious' O'Reily, Andrew ‘ who needs luck when you support the Hammers' Derham and neatly onto Cedric ‘the speedily charmed' Dueymes to score on the far right hand side of the pitch for what was Pedro Primo's Play of the Day.

And now let's look to the folk who were lucky enough not to be with us: Khofi ‘no cream' Annan told EU leaders "credibility of the int. community is now at stake" as Bush referred to the non-committed support of certain countries as the ‘axis of weasels'. He also pressed for a decision from the UN, claiming that with or without their support action could be taken in the next ten days or so, whilst Pat Kubbitti, the opposition to the labour party in Ireland invited Saddam to asylum in Ireland where they could both talk about the benefits of ‘black gold'. It seems now that this could be the only action if Saddam O'Hussain is to avoid missile exchanges with the west.

But someone throwing missiles of his own at the weekend was Sir Fergie as he launched a boot in the dressing room of Man Utd after their loss to Arsenal in the F.A. cup. Fortunately the blow was cushioned by Beckham's head who then proceeded to spit on Fegie before taking his ball and going home. Gary Linneker played down the issue as accidental when he said of the incident, "I'm sure it was accidental. There are not many of us who can remember Alex Fergusson as a player, but if he had meant it he would have missed."

Meanwhile Shane Warne goes for his second court appearance tomorrow in Melbourne facing a two-year ban for his taking of the banned drug diuretic, which he got from his mother. The head of the world anti doping agency Canadian Proud laughed at his innocence when they said "poisoned by his mother? It ranks right up there with ‘I got it from the toilet seat.'"

Also Tyson's fight with Etienne this Saturday has been off and on more times than an oil riggers boots on onshore leave. First his trainer Jeff Fenech quit after Tyson didn't train 4-5 days prior to the fight claiming he had flu and diarrhea, then Tyson quibbled about his earnings of 1.75m quid instead of a promised 4m, then Tyson got a tattoo on his face which his present trainer feels hasn't had time to heal before the fight and now Etienne is talking of not fighting just to join in the fun. Even Don King referred to it as a ludicrous circus and he had the audacity of accusing both fighters of bringing the sport into disrepute.

Someone else bringing a sport into disrepute was football ref, Charlie Hellier who when things got a bit ugly in a local 5-a-side game in Finchley N. London denied going mad with an axe but instead insisted it was a crow bar, he said, "I was ready to defend myself, but they all ran off."

Now to something with a bit of credibility, last week saw the first results of the six nations with England beating France 25-17, Ireland thumping Scotland 36-6 and the shock result of the tournament Italy completed a resounding win over Wales by 30-22. Robert Jones summed up the Welsh performance by saying, "Not being good enough is not a crime, but not being bothered damned well is." The Welsh seem to be in further trouble this weekend and will be needing a bit of magic when they take on England at the Millenium Stadium, but are severely suffering from financial problems, so much so that they cannot afford to play an ‘A' team fixture on Friday night, nor even supply extra enough tickets for the 60 strong choir on Saturday. This weekend's fixtures also include Italy vs Ireland and France vs Scotland.

Conjuring up his own magic is Noah Kelly when he tries to emulate David Blane's trick of icing himself for 62 hours in Time Square N.Y. Noah, however is going for 48 hours surrounded by 20k chunks of cheddar cheese in a shopping centre in Weston Super-Mare. Good luck Noah.

And lastly to a couple of census's that have been taken across Europe, religion was probably the most surprising in Britain with 260,000 Jews, 325,000 Sikhs and a staggering 390,000 force of the not yet officially recognized worship of the Jedi. Also, apparently in a tally of 17,000 Europeans was that 3 in 10 workers have an office bonk, with the Iti's amassing a healthy total of 1 in 4, presumably these results came in just after Italy beat Wales.

See you on the hallow turf this weekend.

Prim