Andy Murray, the well known tennis incompetent, is to head the Vote Yes campaign in the upcoming referendum on Scottish independence. Andy, 34, took a time out during his exciting (and - I assume - losing though the game's not finished yet) semi-final at the Australian Open earlier today to field media questions in a 15-minute conference call.
"I believe Scotland would benefit greatly from wrestling itself free of the choking English yoke," said the popular Gaelic miserablist in response to a question from Daily Mail satirist Sir Quentin Letts. "And trust me, I know plenty about choking. When Alec (Alex Salmond, the Scottish National Party leader and First Minister of the bleak northern dependency) rang my mum and asked if I could help in some way she immediately proposed I should be the biggest of big frontmen for the campaign. Apparently Sir Sean Connery was a bit aggrieved about that but hey guys, I'm not in this for the publicity. I get plenty of that by repeatedly losing tennis games and not turning up at the Sports Personality of the Year awards."
Andy briefly returned to the court at that point and screwed up an overhead smash on break point.
Military historian and former Daily Telegraph editor Sir Maxwell Hastings asked Murray if he knew anything about Culloden. Andy, 27, smiled wanly and nodded. Sir Maxwell pressed him on the issue but Murray's coach, Ivan Lendl (before Murray tennis's most renowned loser) intervened and steered the questioning in a different direction.
Evening Standard diarist and light entertainment maestro Sir Noel Edmonds asked Murray if he realised that his semi-final opponent Novak Djokavic was raining down uncontested serves out there on the court whilst he was fielding these questions about something he knew even less about than tennis. Andy, 41, looked behind him, winced, ran out on the court and put a backhand drive twenty feet out of bounds.
