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On Christmas night, I had the final Conscience of 2008 all laid. Everyone gives awards this time of the year, mine would be the Katharine Hepburn prizes for champions going to seed.
Hepburn once said that actors end up 'selling one's deteriorating self' by going on beyond the point where age dims performance. Perfect, I thought, I shall award three gongs in her memory:
To Evander Holyfield for attempting a reckless comeback in boxing at a grandfatherly age.
To Ricky Ponting for leading the Australians from an imperious 15 years to embarrassing decline.
To David and Lady Victoria Beckham for their chutzpah in taking on the fashion capital of the world - Milan.
I awoke yesterday aware that I had possibly got one of the three terribly wrong. Ponting was back on home turf, the Melbourne Cricket Ground where he thrashed South Africa for a century in a shade over two hours.
Good old Rick. His year of losing Tests to India was capped by last week's surrender in Perth, where Australia's clueless bowlers and his insipid leadership were hammered. South Africa raced to the second greatest run chase in history, scoring 414 with six wickets to spare.
The former playing greats, who inhabit press boxes and TV studios, condemned Ponting as a captain who did not know what to do without the retired star bowlers Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath to call upon.
The Herald Sun columnist Robert Craddock castigated Ponting's body language. He described the Australian captain as a human teapot, standing around with one hand on his chin, the other on his hip.
That suggested he had no faith in the bowlers, though, possibly just to be contentious, Ponting argued that it was the batting (he made zero and 32) that set up the humiliating defeat.
Whatever, there were only two things Ponting could do to get his life into perspective. He shared Christmas with his wife and their first child, five-month-old Emma. Then he went out to bat like the man he is, knocking his 37th Test ton.
Must I strip him of the Hepburn award? I will hold fire until this match is over. Ponting with the willow in hand was never the issue, let us see how he leads the troops and handles the bowling and fielding.
There is, alas, no reprieve for Holyfield.
He sets his own destruction by trying to defy Father Time. He possibly still believes he can become the oldest heavyweight champion at 46.
Ol' Holyfield wants a rematch, after losing on points to Nokolai Valuev last week. The American, whose US$250 million (S$360 million) has gone on maintenance to 11 children and bad investments, conceded 25cm, a huge poundage and 11 years to the 2.13m Russian.
The self-harm is incalculable. But Holyfield's claim that Valuev's hands 'are not as slow as everybody thinks they are' is a giveaway.
Valuev is a lumbering giant. But, to the eyes of an ageing pugilist, he looks faster than he is. It's the delusion of the ex-champion.
The Beckhams? Definite Hepburn material. They are moving temporarily from Los Angeles, where David now admits soccer is second class, to Italy, where he hopes a two-month attachment to AC Milan will persuade England coach Fabio Capello to grant him one more cap to beat Bobby Moore's record.
Milan's midfield does not need a 33-year-old Beckham. When you have Andrea Pirlo, Kaka and Clarence Seedorf as dead-ball conquerors, what makes a fading Beckham so attractive?
'It has absolutely nothing to do with fashion,' the English midfielder insisted at his signing ceremony.
No? As he took his bow, stylishly if funereally attired in black but sporting the red and black of Milan he says has always been a special colour combination to him, the crowd barely acknowledged him.
Milanistas have seen many greats come and go, and Beckham, trailed by a dozen kids wearing the Beckham No. 32 jersey that Milan and adidas reckon to sell to the world, was a cynical stunt.
Where was Mrs Beckham? She walked the catwalk at his press unveiling, but on match day she was busy around Milan's hot spots, making sure the paparazzi snapped her in five of the outfits whose designer she endorses.
Who makes the decisions in the Beckham household? 'Sometimes her, sometimes me,' Beckham said in his disarming fashion. 'This one was easy. Victoria's always loved the city since she started coming here for fashion weeks.'
Selling their deteriorating selves? The Beckhams are past masters at it.
