Sporting Miscellanies

In a bold bid to go out on a high, Channel 4 reportedly plans to entice Paul Gascoigne to star in the final run on Celebrity Big Brother, beginning in January, with a £100,000 fee.

Who'd have thought C4 would seek profit from parading a raging alcoholic with obvious psychiatric problems before a rapacious public?

After all, it's an eon since Gazza last gave cause for concern... two days, to be precise, since accounts of him sinking 40 cans of beer and talking of suicide appeared in print.

Short of sticking the executive responsible in front of a firing squad, you can't conceive of a more humane way in which this franchise could crawl into obsolescence than by tormenting this most transparently vulnerable of men.

Only Kristina has been KO'ed by Joe's passion has save his passion

For sporting stars who have never quite engaged the public, on the other hand, reality TV is a useful short cut. And so to Joe Calzaghe's efforts on Strictly Come Dancing.

Nigel Mansell's leading rival for any Oxymoronic Sports Personality award may not have impressed with his hoofing, but he has gone that heroic extra mile to forge a relationship with Siberian dance partner Kristina Rihanoff.

Why Joe struggles to bring the fireworks he and Kristina are said to privately ignite to the dance floor is unclear.

Then again, we've all heard of boxers who dazzle in the gym, but freeze the moment the ref tells them to return to their corners and come out fighting.

Chips are on the table for last-chance Audley

Distressing signs, meanwhile, that the years of disappointment have taken their toll on Audley Harrison.

Although A-Force has agreed to return to the ring on Friday, in a "Prizefighter" event involving such fellow heavyweight titans as Danny Williams and Michael Sprott, he has clearly lost his mojo.

"It's too late for me to leave a lasting legacy like Lennox Lewis," says Audley, which seems rather too self-deprecating from one still a few weeks shy of 38. The good news is that he still believes he'll win a world title.

The better news is that he is becoming well known in Vegas.

Admittedly that's from scraping a living playing low-stakes poker rather than headlining at the MGM Grand, but it's a start and we wish him well.

Sad Sol's reasoning just doesn't add up

Much like the alleged second JFK assassin and the grassy knoll, we will probably never know the full truth of Sol Campbell's abrupt departure from Notts County.

For now, claim and counter-claim add an extra pea-souper of doubt to an already opaque tale.

Sven-Goran Eriksson feels let down by Sol quitting and Sol responds by hinting at treachery from the club. We will probably never penetrate the fog, as I say.

But if Sol genuinely believed that Roberto Carlos would be joining him at Meadow Lane, as he claims... well, suffice it to say, booze apart, he could give Gazza a run for his money as the certifiable football presence in the last ever Celeb BB.