Thrashing about in an interim period

True, we have Roger Federer to watch out for after he's again hired another "trial" tennis coach - this time American Paul Annacone - to rescue him from his slump and stop the twins from worrying why Daddy gets home these days well before the final. Yes, there were moving tributes to Alex Higgins after his early death from throat cancer and it was good to remember the "Hurricane" who drew us entrancingly into snooker in the 1980s. Yes too, there's a real prospect that Majors bridesmaid, Lee Westwood, will become the World No. 1 and knock Tiger off what seemed to be a permanent perch at the top should he win the Bridgestone International. And wow, there's even a spicy story that London may not be ready for the Olympics now just two years away!

But these are hardly enough to dissipate the protracted hangover that keeps clouding our sporting viewing ever since they pulled down the nets in Soccer City and kicked those high-flying Jabulani balls into outer space - at least we can hope they did.

There was the Tour, of course. But with all credit to Alberto Contador, can we seriously be expected to commit mind and soul (not to mention precious watching hours ) to guys whom we just know can't be doing the remarkable things they're doing without some kind of extra push for their aching bodies?

Grand Prix racing looked nicely poised to offer a great run-in as to who'd be first past the checkered flag at the end of the season. But that prospect has been cynically undermined by the louts at Ferrari, set at all costs on garnering the drivers' title. Ferrari may have been fined a $100,000 for giving Felipe Massa a coded order to allow teammate Fernando Alonso through to win Sunday's Hockenheim race.

Sordidly, though, the result stood and Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo felt entitled to slam the "hypocrisy" of those criticizing Alonso's victory: "If one races for Ferrari, then the interests of the team come before those of the individual," he insisted. Alonso may be firmly back in a five-way fight for the drivers' championship, but this doubling-up of drivers creates a question mark over our interest in the rest of the racing season.

And so the search for attractive viewing had to go on. Eureka! I went back to readers' contributions at the start of the year when you were asked to produce lists of the ten most enticing events you would watch given a magic carpet to fly off the couch. Californian contributor Mark Siegel plumped for a chess competition on the Adriatic coast. To promote his cause he points to the non-stop chess "action" going on right now around the globe, and even provided a translation of a TV commercial run during the World Cup: "ha sido una partida intensa hoy! (It's been an intense match today! ); Ya veremos que esta pensando! (Now we'll see what he's thinking! ); Movera a la reina o movera al caballo? (Will he move the queen or the knight? ); Que tension!; Gol!!!"

Great stuff, reminiscent of the classic Monty Python sketch about the philosophers' soccer game - viewable, of course, on YouTube. Siegel has reenforced his call with a reference to Gambit, the New York Times chess blog, which says, in promoting the game, "In its 1,500-year history, chess has embedded itself in the world's culture and vocabulary. Ideas, terms and images from the game have long been used as proxies for intelligence and complexity. Chess is more than a diversion."

Surely so. Unfortunately, that doesn't make it a sport. An intrinsic ingredient must be physical action and movement. Unless we always play with those giant pieces in outdoor parks where stamina and physical attributes do perhaps come into play, I say, thanks Mark but this isn't a solution, though we might yet engage those tournaments in Poland, Dortmund, Biel and the U.S. junior championships, both boys and girls (Methinks that the male-female split is a basis for a column right there ). On the 14th tee I was accosted by another reader with the accusation that this column tries too hard to be "philosophical," and doesn't allow the athletes to get on doing their own thing. "All the more true in the hot summer," she railed. "Why have all those jokes you used to share for our sports viewing pleasure dried up?"

Here's one, then (slid over like a well-disguised drop-shot by an Israeli tennis buff ) about a new store that's opened in New York City. It sells "new husbands" and issues these instructions to prospective buyers: "There are six floors. The value of the product increases as you go up. The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor or choose to go up to the next floor, but cannot go back down except to exit the building."

A woman searching for a husband encounters this sign: "Floor 1 - These men have jobs." She's intrigued, but continues to the second floor. There, the sign reads, "Floor 2 - These Men Have Jobs and Love Kids." "Nice," she thinks, "but I want more." Floor 3 reads, "These Men Have Jobs, Love Kids and are Very Good-Looking." "Wow," she thinks, "but let's keep going."

On the fourth floor it's, "These Men have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-Dead Gorgeous and Help with Housework." "Mercy me, I can hardly stand up!" Still, she seeks more. Floor Five reads, "These Men have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-Dead Gorgeous, Help with Housework and Have a Strong Romantic Streak." She's tempted, but decides to go up to the sixth floor where she finds this notice: "You are Visitor 31,456,012. There are no men on this floor. It is here solely as proof that women are impossible to please!"

To avoid charges of gender bias, a "Wives Store" is opened across the street: The first floor has wives who love sex; the second has wives who love sex, have money and like beer. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth floors have never been visited."

Ping-pong pooh-pooh

Another of the start-of-the-year couch competitors elected to go to China's national table-tennis championships. The 2010 event has already taken place, however, so that doesn't help our present viewing needs. An alternative is evolving, as revealed by novelist Howard Jacobson in The Independent: "When taking over custody of the Olympics, [London Mayor] Boris Johnson made a good joke in Beijing. He told the Chinese that table tennis, originally called whiff-whaff, was ours before it was theirs. 'The French looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to have dinner,' Johnson said, 'We British looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to play whiff-whaff.'

"In the run-up to the Olympics, Johnson is making good on his promise to 'bring whiff-whaff home.' One hundred tables are being positioned around London, in squares, railways stations, shopping centers etc; thousands of bats and balls will be provided, any number of related talks, lectures, quizzes and even singalongs will take place, and, assuming all goes to plan, a great wave of ping-pong enthusiasm - Ping! the campaign is called - will break over London. "A Chinese television reporter wasn't wildly interested, though," Jacobson reports. "She wanted to know whether the mayor really believed that by putting tables all over London he could mount a serious challenge to Chinese ascendancy in the 2012 Olympics. 'Of course not,' Boris laughed, 'this is about fun, not winning.'" You never know, though - after all, why did the British invent competitive sport in the first place, if not to compete? (Although the way Gerrard, Lampard and Co. competed in South Africa, you'd never really believe that! )

So the search for good viewing continued. Recall of England's dismal World Cup brought up another thought-provoking article, well-argued but a wholly erroneous appeal in the Guardian for a smaller World Cup reduced to 16 teams on grounds that "who cares if New Zealand and North Korea battle their way into the finals," and because the present unwieldy format gives us less contests between the big teams.

The latter thought bears thinking about. But in my book the proper way to retain the World Cup's special attraction is to stage it every two years, not four. The FIFA boffins just love experimenting with soccer's rules and formats. They could call the 2012 tournament in Qatar just that, "The FIFA Experimental World Cup." At very least, just thinking about it might ease this awful hangover brought on by a protracted absence of top-flight soccer.