MY WEAKNESS in life – well, one of them – is coffee. I drink gallons of the stuff.

I drink so much coffee that, for about one hour a day, I feel on top of the world, before crashing down into a shivering wreck later on.

Coffee punctuates the day. If I finish a job at work, that’s a cup of coffee. Out and about? Chance for a cup of coffee. A shopping trip? Coffee, coffee, coffee.

So, rather than cut down on my caffeine intake – I tried that and it was a disaster – I’ve actively embraced it and signed up to loyalty schemes. I have a Starbucks card, which gives me a free cup every 15 drinks, a Greggs card that needs to be stamped every time I buy a brew, and a McDonald’s card, which you complete by adding a sticker which you find on the side of each cardboard cup you buy. Get six stickers on your card and the seventh cup is on old Ronald. Magic.

My duties as a sports writer take me up and down the country, to many service stations, and the loyalty cards take a hammering. And it’s nice to get a free coffee now and then.

But I have bought coffees when I don’t need them, just so I could complete my loyalty card. These corporate machines have me right where they want me. I’m a shill, motivated by my love of caffeine and all things free.

But now my pursuit of that goal has taken a worrying turn. I have found myself investigating discarded McDonald’s coffee cups to see if the sticker is intact. This involves picking them up off the ground, or – even worse – peering into a bin to see if there are any. All this for a free mocha.

I told a friend about this and he mocked my efforts. “Why do you want to do that anyway,” he crowed. “Just buy the stickers off eBay and you can have as many free coffees as you like.”

I may be a little weird, but I’m no criminal.

IT would be assumed that I support Jeremy Corbyn in his bid to become Labour leader on account of the fact he has a beard, right?

It is true that he looks like a kindly uncle, and most of his rhetoric reflects the post-General Election anger felt by a lot on the left of the political spectrum.

But, as much as I like my uncle, I’m not sure I’d trust him to run the opposition to the Government.

However, I would expect the contest to be a fair one. If Jeremy Corbyn is the choice of the Labour supporters, then that is how it should be. Democracy is a cruel mistress.

Corbyn’s nomination carried the smallest support from members of the Parliamentary Labour Party, which is a real concern should he win the whole thing. So you can understand there being resistance to his remarkable rise in popularity.

New party rules allow members of the public to sign up to vote as a "registered supporter" for just £3. A total of 121,000 have done just that, but many have been told their vote will be ignored, and that there is an 80-strong team within the party vetting new applicants.

The suggestion that Labour Party executive committee is actively removing voters, plenty of whom just so happen to be Corbyn supporters, is at best mischievous and, at worst, downright disgraceful.