I say if he ever gets fed up with Zoe – ever finds himself hankering for someone considerably less perky, say – I’ll be up for it He asks: “Can you cook?”
“I can microwave Ready Brek. Can Zoe cook?”"Not a thing! Do you have your own teeth?”"Abso-loot-ly,” I lie gaily, through closed lips.”You’ll do, then,” he says.Hang on, I say I just want to get one thing clear here Zoe has described you as an “animal in bed”. “I think, anyway,” he says, “you’ll find he’s the Harbourmaster now.” I rather like Fatboy Slim from the off He’s funny. His immediate neighbour is Nick Berry but no, says Fatboy, he’s yet to catch him racing along the beach in a policeman’s uniform, chasing baddies with a bicycle pump. Still, being open to new experiences – so long as they don’t persist past my bedtime or require that I possess all my own teeth – I trot off to Brighton where, it turns out, Fatboy lives in one of those fabulous, whitewashed, Twenties jobs right on the seafront. So, I’m dispatched to meet Fatboy Slim, a very fine pop star, by all accounts, plus the greatly-envied fiance of a certain Ms Zoe Ball.

I am dispatched, I think, because of various complaints that have been floating around, claiming I am not “with it” enough. This, it seems to me, is ludicrous, considering I have long maintained that Cats contains the best music ever written – “Memories”? Is there anything to beat it? – and I’ve been known to get up to some pretty hip things of an evening, such as watching repeats of The Good Life on UK Gold while nicely relaxing in trousers with elasticised waists. In turn, the computer generates a graphical icon showing wind speed in miles per hour and an arrow that represents the exact direction the wind is blowing.There were so many bogey fives on the windswept first day, officials ran out of numbers on the press centre scoreboard and had to call for new supplies.. “I sent off the cheque to the R and A, now I am just waiting for Les to repay me,” he said.Television viewers are getting a better understanding of the playing conditions at Carnoustie, thanks to new technology from Unisys.This advanced technology solution captures wind speed and direction relative to the fairway from the golfer’s perspective and relays the data, via radio, to a computer inside the production truck. Foley has paid Price’s pounds 85 entrance fee to the championship the last four years.

I could have won it.”Another man to make the putt was Neil Price from Leasowe, who replaced the injured Sam Torrance on Thursday with only 20 minutes notice.The former Cheshire Boys champion, who qualified from Monifeith, is indebted to Les Foley, a jeweller on the Wirral. And they got it wrong in the book!”Brian Watts still cannot quite come to terms how his life has changed since last summer. The American arrived at Royal Birkdale unknown after playing on the Far East tour yet went on to force a play-off with Mark O’Meara.”People had a clue who I was this year,” said Watts, who comfortably made the cut at Carnoustie with a total of 147 “It was nice In the past they didn’t have a clue that I could play golf I am disappointed I didn’t win last year I didn’t play very well on the weekend. “He read somewhere that I like them and they were quite interesting.

The funny thing was that he actually had that circumference of the earth problem in one of them. JESPER PARNEVIK loves a mathematical problem almost as much as he loves playing golf. He was distracted at Loch Lomond last week when about to putt for a birdie because of a puzzle going around in his head, involving the circumference of the earth. The Swede little realised that going public on the matter would create such a great deal of interest.
“Someone actually sent me a few books of maths problems and puzzles,” he said. Par 71;

GB or Irl unless stated
290P Lawrie 73 74 76 67J Leonard (US) 73 74 71 72J Van de Velde (Fr) 75 68 70 77(Lawrie wins four-hole play-off)291A Cabrera (Arg) 75 69 77 70C Parry (Aus) 76 75 67 73293G Norman (Aus) 76 70 75 72294D Love III (US) 74 74 77 69T Woods (US) 74 72 74 74D Frost (SA) 80 69 71 74295J Furyk (US) 78 71 76 70S Dunlap (US) 72 77 76 70R Goosen (SA) 76 75 73 71J Parnevik (Swe) 74 71 78 72H Sutton (US) 73 78 72 72296S Verplank (US) 80 74 73 69T Yoneyama (Japan) 77 74 73 72C Montgomerie 74 76 72 74297L Westwood 76 75 74 72C Rocca (It) 81 69 74 73P Sjoland (Swe) 74 72 77 74B Langer (Ger) 72 77 73 75F Nobilo (NZ) 76 76 70 75A Coltart 74 74 72 77298E Els (SA) 74 76 76 72P O’Malley (Aus) 76 75 74 73B Watts (US) 74 73 77 74I Woosnam 76 74 74 74M A Martin (Sp) 74 76 72 76299P Harrington 77 74 74 74300P Fulke (Swe) 75 75 77 73D Clarke 76 75 76 73T Bjorn (Den) 79 73 75 73J Maggert (US) 75 77 75 73P Stewart (US) 79 73 74 74T Herron (US) 81 70 74 75L Mattiace (US) 73 74 75 78301P Baker 77 74 78 72P Affleck 79 75 74 73D Hart (US) 73 79 75 74M McNulty (Zim) 73 77 76 75M Weir (Can) 83 71 72 75Nick Price (Zim) 77 74 73 77302D Waldorf (US) 80 72 76 74M James 76 74 74 78303D Howell 76 78 79 70J Sluman (US) 80 74 77 72S Pate (US) 73 76 80 74N Ozaki (Japan) 74 78 75 76304S Allan (Aus) 79 73 83 69T Levet (Fr) 78 76 76 74Choi Kyoung-ju (S Kor) 76 72 81 75D Robertson 76 75 78 75Neil Price 79 74 76 75K Tomori (Japan) 74 75 79 76B Estes (US) 75 76 77 76P Lonard (Aus) 76 78 74 76B Hughes (Aus) 76 71 78 79305S Luna (Sp) 78 74 80 73D Paulson (US) 74 78 79 74P Price 77 76 77 75J Robinson 77 76 77 75306D Duval (US) 79 75 76 76J Rystrom (Swe) 78 75 76 77M Brooks (US) 82 70 76 78307J Sandelin (Swe) 75 78 77 77308S Struver (Ger) 77 73 79 79309L Thompson 75 78 76 80310B Davis 80 71 82 77J Huston (US) 80 71 77 82311L Janzen (US) 80 74 79 78312S Katayama (Japan) 76 75 78 83313M Thompson 76 78 78 81D Cooper 75 77 76 85. He bravely holes it and punches the air – the only golfer to celebrate after blowing a three-shot lead on the last hole of the Open.. Van de Velde is not so lucky, but still splashes out to eight feet.SHOT SEVENAs the crowd runs off to see the start of the play-off, Van de Velde must make an eight-foot putt to join Paul Lawrie and Justin Leonard.

Gasps as he mis-hits his pitch into the water.SHOT FOUR (AND FIVE)The gasps turn to laughter as Van de Velde takes off his shoes and socks and wades in, apparently to play it, before changing his mind and taking a penalty drop. He needs to get down in two from the dropping zone in the rough to win outright but he bunkers his pitch.SHOT SIXVan de Velde watches his playing partner Craig Parry hole from the same bunker. Van de Velde slices his medium iron and ricochets back off the grandstand, ending in heavy rough.SHOT THREEThe trouble Van de Velde is in starts to hit home as he stands up to his knees in rough with the stream in front of him guarding the green. It seems the golfing gods are smiling on him when a post stops his ball from going into the water on the left.SHOT TWOVan de Velde has just over 170 yards to clear the Barry Burn in front of the 18th green. To lay up seems the sensible option but with a near perfect lie the Frenchman cannot resist going for the green Bad decision. Needing a double-bogey six for victory, the Frenchman embarked on a series of shots that will be the talk of golf for years to come

SHOT ONE
Van de Velde rashly takes a driver off the tee. IT WAS the most bizarre hole in Open history.