According to The Times’, Tuesday night’s Champions League nail-biter left Liverpool ‘beaten but unbowed’, with fans suffering ‘exquisite agony’.

Each phrase rang kinky bells. Girls thrashed, sorry, apologetic, but composing themselves: recovering their dignity, retaining their pride….

And I do hear rumours that some young ladies even (shock horror) derive pleasure from the experience of being spanked.

“Soccer spectating as a form masochism. Discuss.”

Meanwhile, the Army has issued “the pocket guide to instructional behaviour” to NCOs. It ‘lists the maximum penalties that instructors can mete out to recruits who fail to achieve their exacting demands’.

The ‘punishments allowed’ include:

  • 200 metre run
  • 15 sit-ups
  • 25 press-ups
  • 12 strokes of the cane

(OK, I’ll be honest. Guess which one of these I added to the list?).