One thing I love about reading English newspapers is their occasional coverage of American sports. They make everything seem so high-brow...check out this column on Bartmangate:

Late on the evening of Tuesday 14 October in this the 95th year of the suffering of the Chicago Cubs, Steve Bartman did what any baseball fan does when the ball comes his way during the game.

He tried to catch it. By doing so, he has turned himself, in the Cub part of the Windy City at least, into a villain beside whom even the likes of Saddam Hussein pale.

Mr Bartman has not invaded other countries or murdered anyone, but, for fellow Cubs, devotees his crime is infinitely more serious.

By raising his hand when he did, he possibly cost their beloved but benighted team the chance of winning its first World Series since 1908.

It reminds me of a line a sportswriter in the Times of London came up with before England was to take on West Germany in the 1966 World Cup Final: "if on the morrow we shall lose to Germany in our national sport, let us remember that we vanquished them twice this century in theirs."