The RFU have managed to upset most of New Zealand ahead of the Rugby World Cup in September by launching a black change kit. Officials had gained the approval of their New Zealand counterparts, amid fears that the use of black would rile supporters of the All Blacks, but it still looks like Johnson's team will be public enemy No 1 when they land in Auckland. The RFU has attempted to justify the choice by saying the traditional white shirt clashes with Argentina and Wales, and I can buy the Argentina point but Wales play in red, which I'm pretty sure doesn't look anything like white.

When Brazil's men missed all 4 of their penalties this evening I didn't sit here and say things like "yeah well they should stick to DIY" or "they'd be better off staying in the pub" - a) because it would be a completely ridiculous and irrelevant thing to say and b) because I'm not a total ass.

I've never really understood why people think that Shakespeare is for 'posh people', but then I've never really understood why everybody doesn't love Shakespeare.  Two years before making his serious stage debut as Othello at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Lenny Henry summed up his attitude to Shakespeare. “It seemed to me that Shakespeare was very much in the province of posh people,” he said on a Radio 4 series about the Bard. “I’m black, I’m from Dudley, I’m working class. Shakespeare’s not for people like us.”

After almost 11 years of the left side of my face being paralysed I don't really think about how it affects my life on a physical day to day basis anymore, you just kind of get on with it. It wasn't until recently that a conversation prompted me to think of the things that I can and can't do because of my facial palsy.

Back in May I stated the case for returning Thomas Hitzlsperger to his rightful English home in 'My Source Tells Me...' at the time for around £500k, and now it's even better because he's on a free. What's more he wants to come home to Villa Park (told you it was down to a communication error he ended up at West Ham!), so what is the problem?

From Hypnos' poppy potion that induced slumber in Greek mythology to the poppy field which threatens to send Dorothy and her friends to everlasting sleep in the Wizard of Oz to In Flanders Fields by John McCrae the poppy has long been associated with both sleep and death due to the opiate extracted from the plant and  the common blood-red colour, but is also associated with rest and healing. It is one of the prettiest weeds commonly found across Europe and incredibly striking.