THE VIEW FROM ROW Z: You shouldn't laugh, but...

THE LAST two weeks have produced a pair of cracking examples of what the Germans call Schadenfreude — mischievous pleasure taken from the misery of others.

Firstly there was Wayne Rooney, who came out with the quote that he “hates” Liverpool in the build-up to being stuffed by them.

Not that I either condone or condemn the Manchester United striker’s comments — they were at least interesting, which marks them out from most of the Premier League’s pre-match fluff — but it is always worth a small guilty chuckle to see such remarks stuffed back down whence they came via a 4-1 pummelling.

More recently, there was Wales rugby union coach Warren Gatland. Prior to the RBS Six Nations decider against Ireland, the Kiwi announced that out of all the sides in the competition, his boys “dislike the Irish the most”.

Dislike was an interesting choice of word. Personally, I dislike rice pudding, celebrity magazines and almost everything shown on BBC3.

Crucially, what these three things have in common is that they aren’t queuing up to smash me up into small pieces.

Unlike the ultimately triumphant Ireland, who have men like Brian O’Driscoll to call on. The television commentators were struggling to come up with a simile fit to describe the Ireland captain. I’ll settle for comparing him to some kind of giant, super-athletic mythical beast.

Perhaps Gatland should be more concerned with getting his own massively talented squad into shape than engaging in silly psychological battles.

With outrageous talents like Lee Byrne and Shane Williams at his disposal there is no way in the world that Wales should be ending up in fourth place.

MY TECHNICAL expertise when it comes to motor vehicles is limited to manually tuning the radio.

However, those better informed about diffusers and widened front wings are putting out the information that Lewis Hamilton is about to find it very difficult to win a second successive Formula One drivers’ title.

Basically, his car doesn’t look like it will be very fast, which means he may find it difficult to zoom past other cars (pardon the technical jargon).

So it appears that the title is wide open.

They say that the smart money is on Jensen Button finally having a chance to impress with the new Brawn GP team.

But I bet he would struggle to get crystal clear reception on BBC Radio York while winding his way around Ripponden Road. You can’t buy talent like that.