A Pair of Aces

I have been broadcasting for 30 years, but I was reminded of a basic lesson the following week at the Lyoness Open outside Vienna. Every day we do a brief lunchtime round-up for the internet and tournament TV. This day it had taken me three attempts to get it right. Imagine my horror when Sky Sports commentator Richard Boxall burst into the press centre saying that he'd just walked through the tented village listening to me saying on the big screen there, "Oh no, I've got that the wrong way round, sorry guys, very dopey, we'll have to do it again. I need a cold shower to wake up, etc." A young and inexperienced assistant producer had rushed and not checked she had the right version. Egg over Tutt's face, but thankfully I had neither abused Austria or its inhabitants, nor resorted to the vernacular at my lunacy. The rule is NEVER, ever, swear into a microphone. You just never know.

I was suffering with a sore back in Vienna, so decided to enlist the help of a reflexologist. She did help, and persuaded me that what I really needed was her "extremely good value leech treatment." I still bear the scars from 10 hours of bleeding, but I can say they are the only beneficial blood-suckers I have come across. My colleague Paul "Slippery" Eales (I have no idea why he is called that) thought I was mad. I was too, once I discovered how much the treatment cost.