TV View:As Geoffrey Boycott put it recently on BBC radio, "if you want a quiet life, you turn a blind ear".

We thought often of Geoffrey's advice while watching bits and pieces of the Australian Open the last couple of weeks, not least when a not-entirely-happy Andy Roddick sent this message to the children of the world after a run-in with the official who oversaw his third round defeat: "Stay in school, kids, or you might end up being an umpire."

That was, of course, uncalled for. We hope the umpire in question - Emmanuel Joseph - was able to turn a deaf eye to the abuse.

But, to be honest, ever since Roddick's seminal performance on The Weakest Link . . .

Anne Robinson: "Which letter of the alphabet sounds exactly the same as a term for a female sheep?"

Roddick: "Eh, Baa?" . . . we find it impossibly hard not to love him.

Which is kind of how we ended up feeling about Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, even if he beat our very, very beloved Rafael Nadal, although we remain perplexed about the widely held consensus that the French man is the spit of a young Muhammad Ali. Jo-Wilfried looks, to us, as much like Marty Morrissey as he does Cassius Clay.

Any way, we set our alarm for the obscene hour of 8.30am yesterday to tune in to the BBC's coverage of Tsonga in the final against Novak Djokovic, and of course the snooze feature ensured that we were in front of our sets just in time to see the Serb thank the sponsors of the Australian Open, before raising the trophy.

We took it, then, that he won, and indeed he did, despite losing the first set to Marty Morrissey.

But at least now we have a new name in our sporting world, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the Havant and Waterlooville of tennis.

"Oh! GOOOOOOOOOOOAL," cried a slightly incredulous Matt Le Tissier on Sky Sports Saturday when H&W took the lead against Liverpool in the FA Cup.

Phil Thompson, sitting beside him, assumed Matt was being amusing. After all, a fortnight before Phil had told porkies to our host, the exceedingly great Jeff Stelling, prompting Jeff to ask Phil: "Are you telling the truth? Because your nose will get longer if you are not."

Considering that every time Phil stood up from the bench during his days as Liverpool assistant manager the opposing fans sang "sit down Pinocchio", this was unfortunate.

But Matt wasn't jesting, H&W did take the lead - twice, as it happens.

Jeff told us if they held on it would be the equivalent of the Liberal Democrats getting an overall majority and forming the next British government (think Progressive Democrats in Irish terms).

The faces of Matt, Phil, Paul Merson and Charlie Nicholas said: "The Libril who?" British footballers, retired or otherwise, just don't do Liberal Democrats.

Alas, it wasn't to be. Nick Clegg won't be the next British prime minister - and no, we didn't have to Google to double-check who is the latest leader of the Lib Dems ("sit down Pinocchio").

So the players of H&W will have to return to their overpaid jobs as plumbers, electricians, painters and decorators, etc.

Same for Wigan. Their FA Cup dreams were ended by Chelsea.

"With due respect to George Orwell, this is not the road to Wigan Pier, this is the road to Wembley," said John Motson as he welcomed us to the JJB Stadium on Saturday.

Not one to protract this class of thing . . . some time later: "The clumping clatter of the mill-girls' clogs down the cobbled street," wrote Orwell in that book, but Wigan's a much changed place these days," he reassured us.

We sensed that if Mark Lawrenson, sitting beside him, had a mill-girl's set of clogs handy Motty's crown might have felt their full force, but on and on he went.

As we know, all sports commentators are equal, but some sports commentators are more equal than others. Take Ted Walsh, he who has no equals at all. Especially when he's grumpy, which is when it is impossibly hard not to love him.

"I must apologise to some mad ould Gaeilgeoir fella who's getting his knickers in a knot over the way I pronounced Al Eile - it's 'Al' Eile, not 'All' Eile - so after throwing yourself off the couch, I apologise," he said.

And he said it so unapologetically, during the coverage from Leopardstown yesterday, that you sensed his real message was: "Stay in school, kids, or you might end up being one of those creatures who goes to the trouble of phoning RTÉ to complain about how the commentators pronounce the name of a feckin' horse".

And d'you know, he'd have been right too.