Quarterback Cam Newton threw three touchdown passes and his Carolina Panthers pummelled the Atlanta Falcons 38-0 on Sunday to earn an NFL playoff first-round bye.

The technical term in the newspaper industry for the Roddy Doyle-writing-Roy-Keane’s-new-biography alliance is a “gusher”: as in one of those derrick-blasting oil fields which we used to see when Dallas ruled the airwaves, an apparently untappable source of columns, features and quirky pieces.

Lou Rawls, the velvet-voiced singer who started as a church choir boy and went on to record such classic tunes as You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine, died today of cancer. He was 72.