I’ve tried to remember if there was some occurrence over the past two or three years that gave me more intense pleasure than Ronaldo missing that penalty against Barcelona on Wednesday night.

The birth of my daughter? The look of pleasure on the faces of my children when they awake to their presents on Christmas Day? Nope - nowhere near. This, you might argue, is the statement of a bitter and pathetic little man - but then “we are what we are”, as the Labour MP Ron Davies announced shortly after he’d been espied interfering with badgers in a wood near the M4 a few years back. Ronaldo’s faux-nonchalant, side-footed slice of a spot-kick provoked me to open a bottle of champagne I’d bought when Ashley Cole was caught out with some slapper a month or so ago, but in my euphoria had entirely forgotten about and left at the back of the fridge.

I was so happy I even thought about buying some Pringles and asking the neighbours round. And there was still plenty in the bottle to toast Cristiano’s fall-down-like-a-great-big-girlie-in-the-penalty-area routine half an hour later. If you were a referee, would you ever give Ronaldo a penalty, unless you actually saw the gun taken out of the holster and pointed at his head? As Sir Alex Ferguson has frequently pointed out, his little Portuguese moppet is often denied decisions which should rightly have gone his way; such was the case, I would reckon, against Barcelona (although in the good old days it would have been an indirect free kick at best).

There is, however, a perfectly logical reason for referees always to grin broadly and wave play to continue when Ronaldo collapses – he is known to have cheated, once or twice, so why take the risk of giving him a decision? The cheating stuff, Sir Alex, is not something we’ve all imagined out of a born antipathy to the man, even if, like me, we do have a born antipathy to the man. We’ve all seen it, and taken note, especially the refs.

There was a bit of fun to be had with poor John Arne Riise, too, and that fabulous diving, bullet-headed own goal, which immediately recalled to mind defenders of the calibre of Glenn Keeley. The pleasure here, however, was mediated by the fact that it meant Chelsea have a slightly better chance of progressing against Liverpool, an eventuality which, of course, nobody wants, least of all the TV companies.

Avram Grant’s Chelsea have become as dour as George Graham’s Arsenal and Don Revie’s Leeds and yet without either of those two sides’ defining, overwhelming competence. Grant’s appointment was supposedly intended to herald a new era of flamboyant attacking football – which indeed it did, for about a week and a half. More recently, though, they have become a luxury Taste The Difference version of Sam Allardyce’s Bolton Wanderers, all sharp elbows and carefully marshalled grit and with their own pouting, diving, sulky moppet up front in Didier Drogba. Referees are beginning to learn never to give him a penalty, either. Most neutrals, I suspect, hope that Liverpool prevail in the second leg; certainly I do, if only for their dignified and stoical fans and likeable manager. The Scousers have done themselves a lot of credit this season, lining up foursquare behind Rafa Benitez even when they were struggling to overcome Havant and Waterlooville and losing to the likes of Barnsley. They seem to have a sense of perspective and dignity on Merseyside, something which appears wholly absent among the arriviste legions at Stamford Bridge, who throw a hissy fit when the team drops a point at home, or against those perpetually deluded monkeys at St James’ Park.

Ronaldo’s misfortune aside, the first leg of Manchester United’s Champions League tie against Barcelona was an affair of almost perfect, exquisite boredom – as these first legs almost always are. They are like one of those early Harold Pinter plays where you know that nothing at all is going to happen and nothing indeed does happen, and you leave wondering why you turned up in the first place.

First shot on target in the 83rd minute. In these knockout stages the first leg always seems to end up either 0-0 or 1-1; they have become pointless exercises in advanced caution and tedium, a misery for the supporters. In the dystopian fiction 1984, George Orwell predicted a time when football would become quite pointless and fizzle out altogether, when the various teams had reached such a level of competence that they cancelled each other out, every game ending 0-0.

Orwell was motivated by a profound mistrust of all sport and, more to the point, was following the same sort of flawed logic which insists that because 100m sprint records nudge ever downwards year on year, there will inevitably come a time when the record will stand at 0 seconds. I am no logician, but I doubt we will ever reach that stage, no matter how many drugs they take.

Orwell’s dystopia has, however, arrived in the form of Champions League knockout stage first-leg ties. To state the obvious, they are played over two legs to maximise income and also to give each team a chance to play at home, but the team that plays at home in the first leg does not treat that match as a “home” game, in the normal sense of the word. They wish primarily not to concede. The away team, however, does adopt the usual away-team tactic of wishing not to concede and so you have a sort of terrible stalemate.

How can this anomaly be addressed by Uefa? You could abolish the away-goals-count-double rule for the second leg, thus placing an onus upon the teams to extend themselves with greater cavalier spirit in the first leg. Or I suppose you could simply insist that John Arne Riise plays in every first-leg tie, as a sort of wild card to be introduced as the game is quietly petering out.

The ultimate baize of glory

The kind of sports where Orwell’s baleful prediction might one day come true are surely those which rely upon precise mathematical calculation and order, rather than huff and puff. So, snooker, then. Watch any game from the world championship and you will see how terrifyingly adept the players have become, compared to the game as it was played just 20 or 30 years ago. These days, one slip and the frame is over. This is especially true of those most meticulous and considered of players, Peter Ebdon and Mark King, whose game on Friday was a marvellous exhibition of almost total mastery of the baize. A cue ball left a shade beyond the baulk line from the break led to an immediate clearance of the table from King; in the next frame, King’s break left the ball slightly inside the baulk line, but Ebdon still polished off the table as a consequence. Incredible. The slips which occurred in this game came almost entirely as a result of the cushions being a shade too springy (hence those unfortunate breaks), rather than error on the part of the players. Ebdon is often criticised for being too deliberate, boring even – and compared unfavourably to the flamboyant likes of, say, Ronnie O’Sullivan. I would not, however, have swapped watching this quiet and gracious man plot his way to victory for the histrionics and mental fragility of O’Sullivan. The future of snooker belongs to the likes of Ebdon (and Shaun Murphy and John Higgins), I suspect – and is none the worse for that.

Think of a number

How much will the 2012 Olympic Games cost the taxpayer? It started out, back in those euphoric days after we won the bid, at £2.4 billion. According to a former boss of the Olympic Delivery Authority, Jack Lemley, this was always known to be absurd and the team were working on a provisional estimate of about £12 billion – but he alleges he was prevented from telling the public about this by mayor Ken Livingstone. Lemley reckons £20 billion – in other words, an eightfold increase on the original estimate.

Multiply the number of stars in the known universe by the amount of money Ken has given to Lee Jasper’s friends and you might approach a realistic figure. Still, I’m sure it will all be worth it. Think of a number

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