This month I have had to reconsider. First in response to the news that Newcastle midfielder Joey Barton has hired a consultant – the manager of Vampire Weekend no less – to change his bad-boy image, but mainly because, as usual when the Wimbledon juggernaut is rumbling into view, somebody out there seems to have been tasked with convincing the world that Andy Murray is a zany and lovable young pup.
Barton has apparently changed as a person more often than Mystique the shape-shifting mutant from the X-Men, yet such is his ability to set his satnav for destination controversy and floor the accelerator, I'd imagine the easiest, cheapest and quickest method of changing the British public's perception of the Liverpudlian hothead is to pump tons of mescaline into the UK water supply. This would probably result in many people seeing Joey as a 15ft-high, fire-breathing orange reptile, but that would at least be a step in the right direction. It's either that or paying Sepp Blatter to stand next to him all the time – something that is guaranteed to make anyone look like less of a git. Although in the latter case Ratko Mladic's lawyers may already have got there first, obviously.
As to Murray, well, the attempts to make him appear like an adorable eccentric seem even more doomed to stalk that dark parallel world in which the contrived and failed public images of the rich and infamous stumble about seeking redemption with the slow, remorseless stupidity of zombies scenting human flesh – "Oh look there's a contrite and much stronger as a person Tiger Woods. And – over to the left of devoted family man Ryan Giggs – there's another one. And another …"
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