OH WHAT a farcical web we weave. At least the sporting world can point to all the twaddle on the front pages about Byers and Sixsmith before wondering what on earth the universe is coming to when we get excited about curling.

Then there's the Martin Johnson nonsense, the Darlington FC shenanigans, and even Test cricket is a farce when Australia beat South Africa by an innings and 360 runs.

I like the image of curling being played by well-muffled, hardy souls on frozen lakes, as it was for centuries until global warming perversely drove it indoors. No wonder the Scots are becoming increasingly wimpish.

All that frantic sweeping struck me as an absurd sporting endeavour until I discovered that the ancient brooms were in effect four-foot hip flasks, hollowed out and filled with whisky. So there was method in their madness!

Rhona Martin and her cronies, however, have hi-tech brooms to go with hi-tech everything else, including ergometers, accelerometers, notational analysis and whatever else the scientists can dream up to destroy the romantic notion of an Ayrshire housewife stepping out on to the ice to strike gold through sheer enthusiasm.

It's a measure of how desperate we are to win something when 5.7 million tune in to watch the climax of an event to which they would have been oblivious had captain Rhona's words a few days earlier proved accurate.

"We're dead," she said after two defeats in the qualifying stages. But other results went her way and the rest is well-documented history.

So will this spark a curling craze? Probably not, but it very quickly brought the usual demands for more investment in the sport, so we can win more medals.

This is utterly ridiculous when there are patients waiting hours on trolleys for operations, although it should repeatedly be stressed that if more were invested in traditional school sports we would have a healthier population and less need to fret about the NHS.

IT is deplorable that Martin Johnson will be leading out the England rugby team in France tomorrow. It is yet another example of how the law is used to prevent a sport's governing body from doing their job.

Johnson was rightly banned and that should have been an end to it. But Leicester questioned the RFU's right even to consider a ban when Johnson's punch had been dealt with through a yellow card.

This is an inexcusable exploitation of a legal loophole, and as the appeal cannot be heard this week Johnson is free to turn the other cheek when the French go out of their way to wind him up tomorrow.

No doubt the law will by tightened and the ban will kick in about four weeks after the event.

Meanwhile Johnson will be under intolerable pressure tomorrow, knowing that if he puts one foot out of place there will be some serious egg on some very red faces.

THE 1960 FA Cup final - Wolves 3 Blackburn 0 - was the first one I watched on television. I chiefly remember feeling sorry for Dave Whelan when he was stretchered off with a broken leg, not that he needs any sympathy now he has a £325 million fortune from building up JJB Sports.

But it was good that he flew back from a holiday in Barbados to watch Blackburn beat Tottenham in the their first cup final - albeit the Worthington - since that fateful day.

Blackburn had a long spell in the doldrums until another millionaire, Jack Walker, dragged them up by the bootstraps, and Whelan's money is doing no harm for Wigan Athletic, not to mention the Rugby League club and Orrell, who have reversed their slump in the 15-a-side game.

Financially, there could be some tough times ahead in sport, and multi-millionaire chairmen are not to be sniffed at.

That's why recent weeks have not been the right time for Darlington fans to be winding up George Reynolds. It almost seemed they had tipped him over the edge last night, but he says he'll see the job through.

Once they are in the new stadium if the team remain as shambolic as they apparently were last Saturday then fans can ask what's the point? But for now a little more patience is required.

THE Jockey Club said it was routine testing; trainer Martin Pipe said it was a dawn raid, and as it was organised by a former SAS man the latter description seemed more appropriate.

Knowing that dope testers might arrive unannounced at any time, as happened at five stables this week, should certainly discourage trainers from dabbling with EPO or any other banned substance.

It also brightened a dull few days when only the all-weather racing at Lingfield survived, reducing Tony McCoy's chances of becoming the first jockey to ride 300 winners in a National Hunt season.

With 252 under his belt, he still has 44 racing days to beat Gordon Richards' record of 269, but 300 might be just beyond him

Published: Friday, March 1, 2002