Boos and Arrows

	Top-notch as a presenter, as a comedy turn Jonathan Ross is about as funny as bird flu

We’re all punters, we’ve all experienced a heated two minutes that have cost us a small fortune.

The stumble to the cashpoint machine, and the drunken lurch back to the casino to dump it all on black. Then the horrible realisation the following morning as you turn your trousers upside down in desperate search of coinage that you’ve done a monkey at least. In such times of torture I turn to one person for comfort – Boris Becker.

No two minutes have ever been more costly than the two Bonking Boris enjoyed with a perfect stranger in a broom cupboard in a London restaurant. The result was a bouncing baby girl, the end of Becker’s marriage and millions in paternity payments.

The fast and the furious

We’re supposed to snigger not at Becker’s misfortune but at the fact he lasted only two minutes – although secretly many of us admire his staying power. I speak as someone known as the Shaun Wright-Phillips of the bedroom – what I lack in size I make up for in speed.

Whether Becker will exhibit similar staying power as new captain on They Think It’s All Over (BBC1) is open to serious doubt. He must be wondering what in God’s name he’s let himself in for.

What were the odds that the replacement for Phil Tufnell on a British comedy show would be a man from a nation renowned for its complete absence of humour?

Yet Becker, making his debut alongside new presenter Lee Mack, was the best thing on the opening edition of the new series.

Introduced by Mack as the star of the German version of the same show – called Geoff Hurst Has Scored Again, The Lucky Bastard – Becker seemed more than happy to be the butt of what little humour there was.

Told that fellow guest Nasser Hussain was never at the wicket long enough to be sledged by opponents, Becker nodded in comradeship: ‘Ahh, you were never in long enough.’

When revealing that he left the famous Germany vs England World Cup qualifier in Munich early, when the score was only 4-1, rival panellist Rory McGrath asked: ‘What, had you met someone?’

Believe me when I tell you they were the two best jokes on the show.

It used to be brilliant, They Think It’s All Over. Now it’s almost painful to watch. Captain Ian Wright’s only contribution seems to be his banging of the patriotic drum whenever the word ‘England’ is mentioned (Cilla Black, he believes, is a national treasure; Tim Henman cannot possibly be lampooned). Some kind critics would call panellist Jonathan Ross painfully unfunny; more accurate ones would use the word ‘embarrassing’. When did Ross become a ‘comedian?’ Top-notch as a presenter, as a comedy turn he’s about as funny as bird flu.

And as for new presenter Mack, replacing Nick Hancock, what a let-down. The guess is Mack earned his new job on the strength of a superb performance on the BBC-televised Jack Dee: Live At The Apollo. But whatever attributes you need as a stand-up comic (thick skin, huge confidence, friends in the audience), presenting a TV show calls for something entirely different.

Curb your enthusiasm

You can only imagine Becker’s reaction after recording the first show: ‘Undt they have the cheek to say ve Germans are not funny…’ There was far more entertainment on opening night at the Skybet World Grand Prix Darts (Sky Sports 2).

I’ve been a fan of darts since bumping into former world champion Phil Taylor outside a radio studio earlier this year.

Taylor, you might remember, was once caught up in some scandal over a caravan and a young lady he allegedly propositioned. Anyway, he told me that he’d been invited on to Celebrity Big Brother alongside impossibly horny Swedish model Victoria Silvstedt but was not sure about the money.

I asked how much.

‘£20,000?’ he said.

‘Well surely you can afford that,’ I said wittily.

‘And they call me a pervert,’ he responded.

You have to warm to someone like that.

Taylor was not in action on the opening night, but world No.1 Colin Lloyd was. Lloyd was a 1/12 shot to beat Irish veteran Tom Kirby in the opening round. But the unusual format – start on a double and finish on a double – was a banana skin for red-hot favourites.

Non-professionals like you and I know how difficult it is to get a double to start. My opponent once finished our match and fathered three kids in the time it took me to get off the mark. And, no, his name wasn’t Boris. And as if to prove the point Lloyd in one leg took eight darts to find an opening double. Believe me, when you’re on at 1/12 every missed throw is like a bayonet to the heart

That allowed Kirby to take the first set in the best-of-three tussle, with Sky commendably bringing us in-running odds at this stage of 1/2 Lloyd, 6/4 Kirby.

‘Kirby is 6/4 and he’s just won the first set,’ the commentator said unbelievingly. ‘You’ve just got to take that.’

Kirby hardly won a leg after that…