Wing T Playbook

Diary: When Ed took a leaf out of Comical Ali's playbook

Father's Day found the nation's paterfamilias and his would-be replacement on captivating paternal form. We'll touch on the Prime Minister after doffing the cap to Ed Miliband, who told The Independent on Sunday that all residual fraternal tension has evaporated. "I'm just going to say," said Ed of his relationship with David, "that we have moved on." "Both of us," he soon went on, "have moved on." "I think what I would say," he added for clarification, "is that both of us have moved on." Tremendous. Who doesn't love a mantra from the Comical Ali playbook?

On his role as a father, however, Ed was more forthcoming. He sings "The Grand Old Duke of York" to his son Daniel at bedtime, when the two-year-old complains, "Too noisy, Daddy, too noisy." Distinguishing "noisy" from "nosy" clearly can't be easy in lisping toddlerese.

As for Ed Anoidal's bold choice of a nursery rhyme that satirises confused and clueless leadership, here the amateur psychologist looks for subliminal explanation. The most celebrated Duke of York, later George VI, had a diction problem that required specialist treatment after he took the crown from an arrogant older brother, who went into seclusion with an American wife furious at her husband being cheated of his birth right. Ah well, we look for clues, but cannot always find them. Time to move on.

* In his Father's Day piece in The Sunday Telegraph, meanwhile, the PM moved on from praising his dad's influence to arguing that we stigmatise absentee fathers as if they were "beyond the pale" drunk drivers. Mr Cameron learnt about responsibility from dad Ian, he writes, who went to work "before the crack of dawn", and "did not come back until late at night". For being off before the kids were up and returning long after they were in bed, he is lauded as a shining contrast to the absentee father. Have I missed something important?

* Encouragement for tennis fans from Frankie Boyle. "Andy Murray won the Queen's tournament," wrote Frankie in The Sun. "He'll have a great chance of winning Wimbledon now if none of the other top players enter that either." Both hilarious and acutely observed. Queen's was embarrassingly weak. There was a promising Spaniard in the draw – Rafael something or other, I think – but, as Frankie said, none of the top players bothered to enter.

* More bad news, alas, for Frankie's predecessor in The Sun. Jon Gaunt has lost his appeal against Ofcom's ruling that the "health Nazi" interview which cost him his TalkSport berth breached its code. Have you guessed yet where Gaunty, who memorably included Rolf Harris among his top 10 greatest living Britons, goes from here? Me neither. Much like Dustin Hoffman's impossibly precious Michael Dorsey in Tootsie, it seems no one will hire him. Perhaps it's time he tried his luck as a woman, and applied for The Spectator's uber right-wing female ranter blog spot vacated by Mad Melanie Phillips. Go, Gaunty, go! You can't sit by the phone waiting for All Souls to ring forever.

The Scouting Guru on area prospects and more - Best High School ...

"We are in the middle of June and it's just around this time that the three national football recruiting websites, ESPN Scouts Inc., Rivals.com and Scout.com are finalizing their players rankings for the class of 2012. Since there is only one player from the East San Gabriel Valley that is ranked by all three websites, I decided to list all the players that are in the SGVN Network. So here they are ..."

As many of you know, I had a chance to work both the UCLA and USC camps the last two weeks. Here are my thoughts on some of the better area players that showed up on either one of the camps....

Chris Solomon (S, West Covina HS) -- When he showed up for registration, I asked him what position what he wanted to do in the morning and he didn't know. Since I was working with the running backs with Offensive Coordinator Kennedy Pola, I suggested that he work with the RB's in the morning and he can go to defense in the afternoon. He was up for it. First off, I think this kid is a player. And I also think he projects to being on the defensive side of the ball. We put him through a ton of drills in the morning and since he plays in a wing-t offense, he was disadvantaged in doing spread offensive routes. He is strong, decently built, but he future lies on the defensive side of the ball.

Kurt Scoby (RB, Charter Oak HS) -- First off, for a kid that is a sophomore - his body is built very well. You can tell that he has been living in the weight room. He spent the entire day with us, in all the strength drills (blocking against the Crother sled, blocking drills with the bags, etc.) he did very well. But I noticed that he is tight around the hips and needs to do a ton of change of direction drills. But, there is a lot there and he certainly will be a good one down the line. Now about that growth spurt??

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Since Fred and Aram did a great job in covering the 4-way that was held on Tuesday at Charter Oak, I will leave to them to tell you all the details from the event. All I will say is I am a hoodie guy - always have been, always will be. So get use to it, Aram!!!!!

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10 things that I think I Think (Before we start, people have been asking me where I got this from, well you can blame Peter King of SI - who does a similar thing in MMQB column on si.com. I loved it o and I hope you are liking it too...