Roo’s not alone in wanting a transfer...

LIFE AND OTHER BITS: AS you batten down the hatches and contemplate burning the furniture to keep out the chill brought on by the no-spending review, spare a thought for Wayne Rooney (Wazza to his friends at Mensa).

Poor Wayne is only earning £200,000 a week and feels the need to be at least on £250,000 to meet his running expenses.

These expenses include more Louis Vuitton bags and Jimmy Choo shoes for his wife who takes to sulking just because he has some rather exotic and expensive female friends with whom he no doubt discusses tactics, especially the merits of playing with two strikers up front.

To further his ambitions, improve his pay packet and perhaps to widen his circle of exotic friends, Wayne wants to leave Manchester United.

But he is not alone. Wayne shares this wanderlust with, believe it or not, a host of Church of England clergymen. Not that the local vicar has suddenly adopted Wayne’s habits, tastes and fancies (although what dark fantasies lurk beneath those vestments, who can say) the appeal for them is the Roman Catholic Church team, managed by the Pope. Nor is the vicar chasing such an extravagant pay rise (collections from the hardy souls who brave the early Sunday morning trek to perch on unforgiving pews are more likely to fund a bike than a Bentley).

And unlike our Wayne, the vicars want to see rather less of women in their lives and fear that the pulpit is under threat from a new female army of Christian soldiers that could soon see less Jesus and too much Shesus in the church hierarchy.

The Archbishop of Canterbury — the Anglican church’s version of Sir Alex Ferguson, but without the rants — faces his own exodus as vicars and bishops leave to join the other team (handicapped if, as the rumour has it, they are all left-footers).

But, in what might pass as “Mass of the Day”, the Rev Stephen Bould, committed Anglican, told his stay-put flock: “We are in a battle, we must fight with flair, imagination and spirit.” Then he handed out the half-time oranges.


IT is good of Howard Sykes to jump to the defence of Charlie Parker’s £213,000 salary. I am sure that the 800 or so council employees who are cowering under the threat of redundancy think it is a very noble gesture.

FINAL WORD: How can David Cameron claim that Britain will remain a “first-rate military power”? We have not been that since the end of the Second World War. Instead of defending our friends all we can do is try to buy them with £7 billion pounds of overseas aid we can’t afford.