John Walsh: Tales of the City

'Will there be gangs offering Rafael Nadal a roll of greasy fivers to make a balls of his backhand?'

(Cameron law)

Are we about to see a spate of match-fixing at Wimbledon? Last month, a report commissioned by tennis's ruling bodies claimed "criminal elements and possibly organised gangs" were preparing to corrupt and/or bribe players and officials. Should we brace ourselves for a fusillade of deliberate double-faults, a tsunami of comically inept passing shots, a flood of fatuously over-pitched lobs and over-enthusiastic smashes? (And if the officials have been bribed as well, shall we see an umpire confidently declaring a ball "out" when it's six inches inside the baseline, a state of affairs about which the stroke player is happy, being in receipt of a bribe?)

A month ago, it seemed impossible. Did we really believe "possibly organised gangs" would queue outside Rafael Nadal's dressing-room, slouch hats and hoodies over their faces, smoking roll-ups and waiting to offer the Spanish heartthrob a roll of greasy fivers to make a balls of his backhand in the second set? I mean, c'mon. But now a dossier has been given to the authorities, looking at eight tennis matches since 2002, in each of which the outcome seems to have been known in advance, judging by the amount of cash wagered on it by Russian and east European gamblers.

In the teeth of all likelihood, it looks as though tennis has been invaded by professional cheating. Just as extraordinary was the reaction of Martina Navratilova, speaking on The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday. Asked what she thought should be done with match-fixing players, she recommended, "extremely severe penalties. Any player that would lose a match on purpose – lifetime ban." What's unusual is Navratilova's draconian moral sense, her old-fashioned acceptance that cheating is a bad thing. It's not a popular view, nor a modern one. Cheating has become so endemic to human behaviour, that our response to it has ceased to be horror or censure. Footballers can perform the most outrageously fake dives without incurring more than a shrug at their tactics. Lee McQueen on The Apprentice falsifies his CV to pretend that his university career lasted longer than a few months, and, instead of being banished, goes on to win the prize as an apparently ideal modern junior executive.

And then there's Dr Raj Persaud, suspended by the General Medical Council after being found guilty of plagiarising colleagues' work. Rather than admit he was a barefaced cheat who copied other people's writings and passed them off as his own, the media shrink denied he'd done anything dishonest, explained he was in a confused state of mind from stress at work, asked for sympathy "at this difficult time" and admitted his actions were "inappropriate" (that weasel word for "disgraceful") and "misleading". He declared himself "saddened [that] this occurred while I was seeking to promote the work of academics to the wider public." Well yes, Raj, it's a bit counterproductive if, when you're trying to praise someone else's research, you pass it off as your own.

The GMC called his behaviour "dishonest conduct", suspended him without pay and told the world, "a three-month period of suspension is enough to tell you, the profession and the public that plagiarism is unacceptable behaviour". Is it enough, though, if the miscreant remains convinced he's done nothing wrong? When he was first confronted with pinching other people's work, two years ago, he blamed it on a "cutting and pasting error". But you could argue that his casual way with cutting and pasting material from elsewhere into his book, rather than originating it himself, is the root of his trouble. It lies behind the galloping incidence of school students passing off internet essays as their own, a phenomenon now so widespread that people are starting to question the value of individual (as opposed to "shared") knowledge.

Cheating is cheating, no matter how much it's dressed up. Brief periods of suspension won't convince the cheat, or the morally unsophisticated, that he's done anything more heinous than perpetrate a foot fault, or perhaps a racket abuse, at the soon-to-be-cheat-riddled Wimbledon championships.

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An archive of Nell Gwyn's living expenses is soon to be auctioned at Sotheby's. It's one of those extraordinary documents which show that historical eras aren't as alien as you think. Charles II's favourite mistress is revealed, through these bills, to be a crazed material girl: she ordered stuff with gay abandon from ironmongers, coachmakers, wine shops, farmers, colliers, chandlers, greengrocers, milliners, tailors, drapers, hosiers, butchers and dyers. She bought tons of food and drink, especially oysters, "oringes and lemons", tarts, cheesecake (yes, really), rum, brandy and faggots. Like any Wag en route to a nightclub, she ordered sedan chairs to travel around London. Though semi-literate, she tried to better herself by buying books and visiting the theatre. In 1674, she shelled out what would now be £150,000 on an ornate bedstead whose centrepiece was the head of the king.

Everything she bought (even a charitable donation to a "poor man at the lay house") was charged to the Exchequer, and paid for by the king with taxpayers' money. Amazing how, reading about Ms Gwyn's extravagance, you find the faces of Coleen Rooney, Cherie Blair, Barbara Amiel and a dozen others popping into your head...