I watch movies in the background while I work on the couch.

Great movies can be watched hundreds of times – American Beauty, Starman, High Fidelity, Almost Famous, Wonderboys, The World According to Garp, The Departed – as a comforting narcotic, but only as background.

Bull Durham was on the other day as part of a Kevin Costner marathon, cause I guess they’ve let him make movies again after Waterworld

OK, not fair, Costner had a good turn as the washed up jock in Mike Binder’s underrated 2005 film, The Upside of Anger.

The Bull Durham sports clichés apparently carried over to an interview I did with the L.A. Times yesterday about Salmonella Saintpaul and the performance of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"There's been a bunch of armchair quarterbacks out there who should really think first and walk a mile in the FDA's shoes," said Powell, the food safety expert, in an interview. "FDA has done a good job keeping its eye on the ball and managed to track it down in the face of a lot of barriers."

Maybe I should have added that everyone’s been giving it 110 per cent. And that there is no “I” in team.

At least I didn’t say, as Costner does to pitcher Tim Robbins, who has taken to wearing lingerie to help focus his erratic pitching,

“The rose goes at the front, big guy.”

Oh, and below is almost an exact recreation of the first time I met Amy.

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