The Circus

Basquing in the spotlight
West Ham United may be having a season to forget in the English Premier League, languishing as it is in the relegation zone with its skint Icelandic owners fighting off financial doom with a few frozen haddock. But relief may be at hand – on the balance sheet if not the scoresheet – in the lovely form of American songstress Katy Perry.

Ms Perry, who kissed a girl and liked it but liked kissing UK comedian, actor and professional Cockney Russell Brand even more, was persuaded by her Hammers-supporting paramour to wear a West Ham "basque" when hosting the recent MTV Europe Awards. The object in question is not, as one might think, a costume made from the skin of a WHU fan from that particularly stroppy region of France, but a form of corsetry.

It created such a stir that the bean counters at West Ham decided to whip up a few and flog them off for a hefty 300 quid each. Just 50 will be made, so get in early if you want to look like a right slapper at the next Upton Park home match.

The truth hurts
Mixed Martial Arts – otherwise known as MMA – is a brutal but legal combination of various forms of violence including boxing, muay thai, wrestling, karate, judo, capoeira, jiu-jitsu, grievous bodily harm and homicide. It has become so popular with both television and live audiences that some experts see it threatening the future of traditional boxing.

Fans of the sweet science must give thanks then for the likes of mixed martial arse Melvin Costa, whose presence among MMA fighters surely ensures that the new style of combat will never take over the world. The delightful Mr Costa is a white supremacist who not only sports a swastika and eagle tattoo on his chest, but also a spider-web prison tough sticker on his elbow that is said to represent someone who has killed an African-American.

On that subject Costa says with admirable lucidity, "I don't know nothing about that. I got my tattoo when I got out. I got this tattooed last year. If that's true then it wasn't a part of my knowledge when I got it." Good, that's cleared that up.
Costa topped a recent list of the worst tattoos in sport, but the swastika and the spider's web weren't the main reasons why. This was. If you are having some difficulty deciphering it, it reads, "I have a small penis."

There's the rub
We trust that Serbian 'physiotherapist' Mariana Kovacevic is down at her local Belgrade stud farm ensuring that the stallions are doing the right thing by their babes, because her radical horse's placenta treatment for footballers' ills has become the cure du jour.

No sooner had Arsenal's Robin van Persie run off to have his injured ankle rubbed with gee-gee placenta by Ms Kovacevic than five other Premier League crocks followed along.

Hopefully there's a happy ending to this massage treatment for all the football stars involved, and that it doesn't go the way of blood injection therapy, which has just been banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Their Cup runneth over
All but one of the 2010 FIFA World Cup finalists are now decided after Europe and Africa zone playoffs overnight settled five of the six final places.

Bitter rivals Algeria and Egypt faced off in neutral Khartoum. We at The Circus figured things between the two countries must be really rough if playing in Sudan was seen as the safe option, but then we realised it was a playoff after the teams couldn't be separated following the group matches. Anyway, the Algerians took home the prize 1-0.

Greece is in after edging Ukraine 0-1 in Donetsk; Portugal booked its place with victory over Bosnia-Herzegovina; Guus Hiddink's Russia is out after losing to Slovenia, and France is through against Ireland, most controversially, after a late equaliser that appeared to have involved a handball.

The result in Paris must have been sweet revenge for this French TV presenter, who had the unenviable task of reporting from outside Dublin's Croke Park on the night of the first match in the playoffs last weekend.



Uruguay, leading 1-0 after the first leg, host Costa Rica in the second leg of their playoff today to decide the 32nd and final team for South Africa 2010.

The numbers game
6,000,000 – UK pounds that Formula 1 world champion Jenson Button will earn next season after defecting from the team that saved his career, Brawn, to join McLaren
2 – number of British drivers who will run about in the McLaren team when Button links up with Lewis Hamilton
900,000 – Danish kroner (about $193,000) that silly Ronni Noervig will have to pay in compensation for running on the pitch and attempting to biff the referee during a 2007 Denmark-Sweden European Championship match, causing the game to be abandoned.
1 – total of Olympic Games medals won by Bahrain. That number has to be adjusted to 'none' after Rashid Ramzi was stripped of his Beijing 1500m gold for doping

Quote of the day
"This is the second-best day of my life. The best was when I lost my virginity."
- Rugby fan Stuart Tinner puts into context the 250,000 UK pounds he won in a kicking competition at half time of the Saracens-South Africa match at Wembley.

Headline we'd like to read
He was rubbish in the sack, says Tinner conquest


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