"Hello sweetheart", "oh, high honeypie, where've you been?" "Oh, just down the boozer, had a skinfull, eh? Yeah eighth time this week, eh? What's that, no problem, oh and what, you think it's great that I'm out and about mixing with the banter, eh? And what's that, you've got a treat for me when I get home..............." da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da (sound of alarm) ‘This is the seven o'clock news and time for your reality check: Vietnam has today denied that it has corrupted the weather pattern in HCMC after the sale of snow tyres rose by 2000%. It is believed the forecasted cold snap was an insider meteorologists hoax orchestrated by a crazed Canadian fur trapper with a ‘bogus' shipment of wheel spikes'!

            Corr blimey eh!, the impractical capability of a pure fantasist. Somewhere in the realms of our own perception lies an idealistic world of utopia, where butterflies dance on our vision and dolphins swim with our fantasies, oh yes Guinness shall be a pound a pint, Kylie's bum will be preserved in a glass mausoleum and Bryan Adams will disappear into the ether.

            Yet dreams are not just yearnings for the Don Quixote's of us, they are desires, wishes and aspirations, attainable hopes wrought with grit, determination and perspiration. ‘Book them and they will come' said Wayne when he was putting on ‘Waynestock' and by golly they did, but do all of us have those benefits of seeing the naked Indian - our ‘guide in the night', the answer, yes of course we do, but it's the question of do we believe? Have we the daring, have we the patience?

            If man wants to eat buffalo, man must chase buffalo and that's the fun part of goal scoring. Mick Channon once said, "it only takes a second to score a goal, and those German's they shoot on sight!" But it's the build up that's clocked up the hours, worked the achievement and paid homage to the last of my cliché's, which is ‘slowly, slowly catch ye monkey'.

            Holding onto this dream of achievement were the Int. touch rugby crew who again last week tip-toed on the sporting Garden of Eden to make merry with their goals of fulfillment. Unfortunately I wasn't there as I took my pet BBQ down to Mue Ne for a spot of R& R at the Sailing Club, and the only person I spoke to for a report was Geordie Jim whose dream collapsed after he was taken ill after only ten minutes.

            So moving along on this hallucinogenic roller coaster, I can tell you about the folk who didn't have time to visualize the splendours of Saigon: Saddam Hussain is still apparently too busy keeping alive somewhere in northern Iraq and is believed to have put a bounty on U.S. and British troops who patrol Iraq's streets. Iraqi spokesman Ahmed Chalaki said, "U.S. troops are now sitting ducks for terrorists." as opposed to any Ba'ath party radical who is rounded up and is Sh**ing bricks.

            In sport, a feast of rugby donned our screens last week when Australia beat Ireland by 45-16 in Perth. The game in which Australia thoroughly deserved to win was a mediocre spectacle of comedy rugby plagued by schoolboy errors and bit and bob refereeing. Australia go on to play Wales this Saturday where only wild dreams of aspirations will keep the ‘leeks' out of the stew. And Ireland take on Tonga (Aussie ‘B' team) in what should be a thumping encounter.

South Africa beat Scotland 29-25 in what was an enthralling game of great running rugby, they will return for a second bout this Saturday. And England kicked off their tour with a second team win over the NZ Maoris (23-9) and on Saturday the real test begins when England play NZ in Wellington. Amazingly this is only the 8^th time England have played in NZ, of which England have only won once, and Jason Leonard with 102 caps has never played there before - should be a humdinger!

            In football it seems that Beck's is almost certain to leave Man U. and move to one of the top Spanish sides of R. Madrid or Barcelona. He and Fergie have not spoken for a couple of months which seems to have stemmed from the ‘bootgate' affair back in February when Fergie slung a boot at him in the dressing room, still Man U. shares have risen 7p to 158p on news that he is leaving earning the club an automatic 30m quid - the man's an automatic cash vending machine.

            As Wimbledon looms ever closer the fuddy duddies at the top have allowed sleeveless tops for men, a spokesman said, "We have decided to go down the same road as other Majors. But the garments must all be white." This it seems has sent Pat Cash into delirium as he is now putting his money on Tim Hennman - the fool.

            And in boxing Lewis is to take a 5m quid pay cut in order to fight Vitali Klitschko on 21^st June instead of Kirk Johnson who had to pull out through injury. The Vitali fight was previously scheduled for November but subsequently brought forward. Lewis had this to say, "I would have got more for knocking out Klitschko in November, when the fight would have been screened on pay per view T.V. than for knocking him out in June." "My T.V. backers HBO will be sending my June bout out for free as there is not enough time to market it." Just exactly where does he get off talking about marketing and ‘pay per view', stick to hitting people mate and leave the gibberish to the Don King's of the world, boxers aint meant to be smart.

            Moving away from primitive man we take a look at ‘Herto Man' when scientists recently dug up 3 people believed to be 160,000 years old in Herto in Ethiopia. They are Homo-Sapiens with primitive features and with brains bigger than ours at 1,450 cubic centimeters compared to our pitiful 1,350-400, oh yeah and their favourite meal was Hippo, but I wonder did that come in a sesame seed bun with fries on the side? And would they have been taxed on it as in the case in England where the British Medical Association wants to put a VAT levy on fatty foods to keep in check with the UK's obesity epidemic. Still that hasn't perturbed the ‘Fast Food Rockers' from releasing their new song, the ‘Fast Food Song' where classic lines such as, ‘McDonald's, McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut, I want it, I need it, nothing else can beat it...' I hear a number one coming.

            If you don't want to bet on that, how about this, bookies are giving odds on who will die in the new Harry Potter book, ‘Harry Potter and the order of the Pheonix' due out in 9 days, topping the chart is Hagrid at 7/2 favourite, followed by, Sirius Balck 4/1, Dumbledore, Fred and George Weasly and McGonagall 5/1, Molly Weasly 6/1, Neville and Dobby 10/1, Cho 12/1, and Hermone, Ron and Arthur Weasly at 14/1. My personal dream is that they all go up in a puff of smoke.

            And lastly a touch of reality with our old mate Adam Ant 49, who after throwing stones at his neighbours windows went down to his local café, the Curly Dog in Primrose Hill, N. London and stripped off then went berserk. After ranting incoherently he pulled off his trousers and went to the basement to go to sleep. Police found him later curled in a ball with a full roll of loo roll with barely legible scribblings on it, one read, ‘Horatio Lord Nelson was his guide.' Now there's a goal to achieve, but a shame he didn't get the naked Indian!

See you on the flip side

Prim