Outside Edge (09/05/10)

Footballers are hardly renowned for being deep thinkers – even "on their feet" – but next Sunday the Philosophers' Football Match will be held at Wingate and Finchley FC in north London. It will recreate the Monty Python sketch about the Greeks versus the Germans, to raise awareness of the "Four Rs" campaign to bring "more reasoning and creative thinking for our children". So here's an existential moment that Albert Camus, French writer and goalkeeper for Racing Universitaire Algerios, might have pondered. In Croatia, a referee booked Mladost's defender Goran Tunjic for diving in their match against Hrvatski Sokola, only to find he had died of a heart attack. He had a good send-off.

329

Not out, scored by 18-year-old cricketer Oliver Hardaker in a 40-over match for Horsforth against Upper Wharfedale in Grassington, Yorkshire. He hit 27 sixes and 28 fours off 144 balls in the Third XI game. How good are the Seconds?

Hot pursuit of the week

Police in Nepal have been told to lose weight or lose any chance of promotion after public complaints that they did not trust obese officers. All 56,000 cops will receive a body mass index target and be offered yoga and fitness classes. No such Plodding problems for marathon runner PC Kelly Morgan of Pontypridd in south Wales. She chased down a teenager who threatened locals with an offensive weapon, having run a 20-mile race earlier that day. He was looking at a short stretch, but Morgan, 31, will appear at the European Marathon Championships in Prague this month as one of the force's five fastest WPCs. Will the long legs of the law cross the thin blue line in the nick of time?

Good week for

Matteo Manassero, becomes second youngest pro on European golf tour at 17 years and 17 days, nine days older than Seve Ballesteros in 1974... Reanne Evans, 24, offered wild card for the men's professional snooker tour after 61 matches unbeaten... and Jenson Button, F1 champion, is granted freedom of his home town of Frome, Somerset, where a bridge will be named in his honour.

Bad week for

Jessica Watson, 16-year-old Australian whose attempt to become the youngest to sail solo round the world has been ruled ineligible because she is said to have not sailed far enough... Steve Mata, former Titleist executive trying to sell "Tiger Slam" clubs on eBay for $250,000 is told by Tiger Woods the real ones are in his garage... and an unnamed ice hockey coach from Humboldt in Canada, indefinitely suspended for giving beer to his team of 10-year-olds.

Ballot boxers of the week

If you thought our General Election got a bit complicated, spare a thought for the Filippinos who have 17,000 seats up for grabs for their ballot tomorrow. Manny Pacquiao, the WBO welterweight champion, is facing the fight of his life to get elected to Congress for his home town, General Santos City. He failed in his first attempt in 2007, and last December the movie 'Wapakman' starring himself as a superhero was one of only two films not to receive a prize at the Manila Film Festival. Now a real heavyweight is stealing his thunder with the return of Imelda Marcos, the well-heeled widow of the disgraced former president. The 80-year-old is a shoe-in but it could be a thriller in Manila.

a.tong@independent.co.uk