What, apart from Mick McCarthy's nose ("like a Dairylea Triangle just about hanging on to his face", as I read it described on one fansite), is the connection between sport and comedy? When I did Fantasy Football, I discovered that football's status as a subculture allows for a particular kind of comedy: the laughter of those who are laughing more because they know not everyone gets the reference. It's a laugh enhanced by the associated feeling of being part of a club; a club that consists of those who did not just have to google Images: Mick McCarthy.

I think comedians see a parallel universe in the muscularity of sport, in the no nonsense-ness of it

I am not religious. I am not a militant secularist. I think Richard Dawkins talks a lot of sense, but then when I hear the Archbishop of York sermonise, I find it easy to get behind him, too. I even find myself in vigorous agreement with the speaker on "Thought for the Day", wishing that I could be similarly beatific. (Although when I fail to locate my glasses and I'm already late for work, and the dog still needs walking, I discover that I'm some distance from Godliness.)

From his long reign as grand seigneur of Santa Clara del Cobre, high in the Michoacá* mountains of Mexico, James "Jimmy" Metcalf could look back on an extraordinary life in which he knew "everyone" and did everything.

Unlike the soiled and spoiled FA Cup final, American Football's absurdly overblown showpiece still reflects the spirit of a nation

What a treat this is - a double bill of two of Woody Allen’s finest films, both made in his mid-1980s prime.

A Woody Allen retrospective begins this month at the BFI and promises to be a treat for his fans. But he still regrets never a having made 'a great film', as a new documentary reveals.

When Harvey Weinstein phoned his brother and business partner, Bob, from this year's Cannes Film Festival and announced that he had just spent "a lot of millions" acquiring a silent, black-and-white movie by a little-known French director, he is said to have received a two-word response: "You're mad!"

Surfing the net recently, on one of those feverish Sunday afternoons when you pretend to be relaxed, enjoying doing nothing, I came upon a diverting piece in which Elaine May purports to interview Woody Allen and Ethan Coen.

Woody Allen's latest is a slapdash comedy drama set in London.

I was in New York last week for a meeting, and through no fault of my own – honest, I'm popular, no, really, even now – I had nothing particular to do on Monday night. And so I asked the concierge to find me a ticket for Jerusalem, this I thought being the obvious way to spend an evening alone in Manhattan at this precise moment. But I had totally forgotten that Broadway is 'dark' on Mondays, meaning I had to slope off and see a film instead.

It reads like a Woody Allen short and has one of the most instantly recognisable drum intros in pop.