Diary: Triesman should start the payback with a joke

What a delight, as always, to begin with a world exclusive. On Friday, Lord Triesman will break his silence about the Mail on Sunday sting that ended his chairmanship of the FA.

His lordship has added himself to the list of speakers for the second reading of Lord Lester's libel reform bill on Friday and is expected to lacerate Associated Newspapers for publishing his covertly taped claims about Russian and Spanish football authorities trying to bribe officials.

Perceived damage to the 2018 World Cup led to Gary Lineker quitting as an MoS columnist ... football's most principled resignation since Kevin Keegan flounced out of the England manager's post on the feeble grounds that he didn't have clue one what he was doing.

If Lord Triesman wishes to be the Jester for Lester, he might begin by lifting a gag from excellent comic David Schneider, who has tweeted that "the FA should only tell Capello whether he's still manager two hours before England's next game."

If I'd still been chairman, Triesy should say, that's what would have happened. After that, the tirade against the paper will have all the more force.

* I can't help warming to that nice Zac Goldsmith, Eco-Tory MP for Richmond Park, who on Saturday did the honours at a prize-giving at the London school attended by his and sister Jemima's children. "It's a tremendous honour to be asked," began Zac, "although slightly less so after meeting Lawrence Dallaglio in the car park, who told me he'd been asked first." What a refreshing departure from his father Jimmy, who spent the mid-1970s in Aspinall's gently plotting to replace Harold Wilson with a Francoist military regime.

* Depressing news that the Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Jeremy Hunt has developed a neurological disorder. Jeremy was diagnosed with Kelvin MacKenzie Syndrome by Proxy last week after implicitly blaming Liverpool fans for Hillsborough. The illness is progressing far quicker than usual. Jeremy apologised at once, where the mea culpa is more typically delayed for years before being grudgingly given to a select committee. If it develops at its present rate, Jeremy will make a watered-down reiteration of the slander on Thursday's Question Time, sort of withdraw it again on Friday and not know whether he's Chemical Ali or Chemical Sally on the matter by the weekend.

We hope the treatment, which involves steroids and making endless unfunny gags about the Scots and Welsh, goes well.

* As for Kelvin himself, I'm worried about him too. Whenever it drizzles for 40 seconds in early May, he bashes out a startlingly original paragraph citing the unseasonal precipitation as conclusive proof that global warming is a fiction, embraced by such fabled leftie conspirators as the Pentagon, to squeeze taxes out of godfearing folk like himself. Yet here we are in a mini-drought and not a dickie bird citing the hot spell as evidence the other way. From a man so committed to rigorous scientific neutrality, it makes not one whit of sense.

* Bless Tim Henman for all the advice to Andy Murray about how to make that grand slam breakthrough. He speaks with such authority. Andy, at the midway point of his career, has peaked at a miserable world ranked number two to Tim's high spot of four and has made two grand slam finals to Tim's splendid tally of zero. When he's done with the Scot, perhaps he'll tutor Rafael Nadal in how to avoid choking.