Low-fat yogurt?

Me too! Greetings from Brisbane, where the temperature is a robust 37C and Englishmen avoid the midday sun by bolting for air-conditioned bliss at the cinema.

Hugh McIlvanney (“The Voice of Sport”) is the silliest bit of the Sunday Times. He’s a dreadful writer, never uses one word if a complicated sentence will do instead. Or as he might put it: If, as is commonly surmised by those in the literary game, it is the case that shortness is one step from sweetness, then never could it be said of Mr McIlvanney that he took that academic truism to heart, for here is a man who prefers a cascade of clauses to pressing the brevity button, whether the cause of clarity demands it or doesn’t.

Here’s one excerpt I picked out a couple of years ago:

As Liverpool have lurched and stumbled their way out of the major cup competitions of England and Europe and into the predicament of scrabbling to sustain fragile belief in their ability to finish as high as fourth in the Premier League (and thus guarantee entry to the Champions League), isolated hints of recovered effectiveness have been swiftly exposed as illusory. Remembering how the 2-0 defeat of Manchester United in October was immediately followed by submissions to Arsenal and Fulham and then a run of three laboured draws, and how the tentative hopes of improved fortunes encouraged by an away victory over persuasively aspiring Aston Villa at the end of December humiliatingly foundered in last week’s expulsion from the FA Cup by Reading at Anfield, it is difficult to imagine we’ll soon be witnessing a genuine restoration of formidability to the club who once ruled British football imperiously.

Try reading that out loud! Beyond parody.

I didn’t realize that question was taboo; I thought it was too obvious to mention.