The Circus

Once more unto the Bridge
As far as harmonious assaults on world domination go, England's dip at the 2010 World Cup is travelling about as smoothly as a union of super villains in a Batman flick – and one starring Val Kilmer at that.  

One time England defender Wayne Bridge retired from international football rather than play with John Terry and even refused to shake his former skipper's hand before Manchester City took on Chelsea on the weekend . . . after all, he knows where it's been.

Manager Fabio Capello then included young centre-half Ryan Shawcross in the squad to take on Egypt on Wednesday, despite the Stoke player launching a challenge on Arsenal's Aaron Ramsey that would have started a war in less enlightened times.

If you are reading The Circus over your Weeties this morning do not click here. It shows the sickening aftermath of the Shawcross tackle, which broke Ramsey's leg in a world-record 3,287 places and led to the first red card of the defender's career.  

There is some good news though: John Terry has a new haircut. Released of the burden of the national captaincy, Terry has taken the opportunity afforded by diminished responsibility to sport a 'do usually favoured by men much younger if not much stupider. The Circus would suggest that he ought to know better but clearly, any such proposal would be a waste of effort.

Fingers do the talking
The curse of technology is that, often, it arrives just after you need it. Take a recent application available for Apple's iPhone. The handy little gizmo allows senders of text messages to pre-determine a time at which the message sent is deleted from the recipient's phone, thereby making unwanted discovery of potentially salacious material much less likely.

And the name of this app? TigerTalk. The fact that a very well known golfer could have used just such a tool in recent times is purely coincidental, at least according to TigerTalk's creator who insists the app was named before the very public fall of the aforementioned superstar sportsman.

It's a shame because The Circus reckons ShaneSpeak has a real ring to it.

Now, if there was only an iPhone app that could cure Tiger Woods's alleged drug addiction as well.

Beer on ice and other bad mixers
Canada's victorious women's ice hockey team has been upbraided for drinking beer, smoking cigars and otherwise behaving exactly like a men's ice hockey team after defeating the United States in the gold medal match.  

Winning skipper Hayley Wickenheiser was nonplussed about the fuss, stating: "all I have to say is 'get real, really get real.'" Really?

She is not without support either with at least one observer decrying the IOC's stance on the matter as paternalistic and sexist, a claim that will be put to stringent examination should the Canadian men emulate the girls and beat the US in the ice hockey final played this morning, Australian time.

With friends like these
Cronulla forward Paul Gallen is no racist; just ask him. Responding to last season's allegation of racial abuse, he said: "Half of my friends are black or Lebanese" . . . makes you wonder what the other half is. Gay? Mormon? Kyle Sandilands?

With Gallen being notoriously media shy, perhaps we will never know.

Numbers game
13 – gold medals won by Canada, at time of publication, in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games
9 – gold medals won by the US
3 – position Canada will finish on the medal table thanks to the home nation's quirky ranking method which counts total medals won, instead of gold medals
1 – medal most Canadians care about winning, the men's ice hockey gold

Quote of the day
"Kornheiser is one of those guys whose ugly side is his only side. But the fact that ESPN has suddenly taken to punishing Kornheiser for being an oozing bag of pus and venom raises more questions about the network than it does about the employee."
- Media analyst Jack Shafer can't find much love for television host Tony Kornheiser or his employer ESPN after the network suspended him for being critical of the outfit worn by colleague Hannah Storm.

Headline we'd like to read
Celine Dion loses voice and any prospect of performing at the Vancouver closing ceremony


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