WHILE you sit there on the train or in the canteen or outside the school gate, ponder this one: what’s the connection between hurling in north Kerry and Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt?

LET’s think back a moment, before we look forward. You’ve just had your dinner. A warm mug of milky tea is perched on the arm of the sofa as you sit back in short trousers on another yawning summer evening.

WHAT’s the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don’t know and I don’t care.

MONTY is cleaning his spikes in anticipation of next month’s action at Celtic Manor while the Americans are checking their passports are valid and changing their money to Euros.

THE great world spins towards another All-Ireland Sunday. Around the world – for an hour or two at least – Irish feet will not make footprints on the fine sands of southeast Asia’s beaches.

AT the turn of the last century, as the hem of American society was dampened by wave after wave of European immigrants, the Irish stretched out their legs beneath the table, threw a cap onto the coat hook behind the closing door and made themselves at home.

REMEMBER the bit in the old baseball movie ‘The Natural’ when the eponymous Robert Redford is lamenting his sorry past (he was shot by Barbara Hershey), beating himself up to Glenn Close?

WHEN the thin red line of Shelbourne players file out of the Dalymount Park tunnel before they face neighbours Bohemians in an FAI Cup tie this evening, it will evoke a time when cash slushed around domestic football.

THE long, sticky days hang on two tent-pole training sessions at the moment. One in the morning. One in the evening.

MIND your heads while I throw in the first cliché, if I may; in sport, there’s no gain without pain.