NOT sure if anyone noticed during the week but there appeared to some sort of election going on in good old US of A.

While every channel was concentrating on the race for the White House, over on Five they soldiered on manfully with the NBA.

Although it was all a bit confusing as I tuned in to see presenter Mark Webster surrounded by giant pictures of Barack Obama and John McCain.

Every time I see Webster he has become more interesting in the facial hair department, now appearing to be a cross between Gerry Adams and Grizzly Adams.

The match-up was between the Boston Celtics and Houston Rockets. Well it was Guy Fawkes Night, so it made sense.

It also brought back some familiar faces.

Ray Allen is still playing for Boston but again there was no sign of Lord Charles and Yao Ming is still being very tall for Houston.

One of the faces of the Beijing Olympics, Mr Ming is the same height as the Great Wall of China and about as mobile.

Honestly for someone so big I’ve never witnessed someone as soft as, well, as something that may resemble his name.

The game proved to be slightly harder to call than the election, the scores poised beautifully at 79-78 in the third quarter.

For once basketball was actually threatening to get interesting, and with that we lost pictures and it was replaced by a shot of the Toyota Center.

I assume this is where the Rockets play and is not a Houston car dealership.

It meant Webster and his studio comrade in arms, Andre Alleyne, had to guide us through.

“Two things to clarify - it’s a tight game and it’s from the Toyota Centre,” he told us. Thanks for that, Mark.

Meanwhile, Obama was still winning hands down but there was a clear message coming from the people of Texas, who were shouting ‘defense, defense’, clearly concerned by America’s foreign policy.

There was still no fire, friendly or otherwise, coming from the court, but when pictures did return it was all very tame and Boston won as easily as Obama.

But having watched David Dimbleby and Alastair Stewart on the elections they never summed it up as well as Webster’s parting shot.

“We have a new president and as James Brown once called for, we have a black president.”

Err, ‘we’? Can I just point out that we, in the words of the late Mr Brown, are not living in America. Silly Baracks.

Joe a giant in Big Apple

"We're walking in the shadows of giants tonight, at the place where the greats have written themselves into boxing history.”

A typically understated start to Setanta’s coverage of Joe Calzaghe’s clash with Roy Jones Jnr at Madison Square Gardens, but for once they were bang on.

Although when Joe crumpled in a heap in the first round I was none too impressed that I had sat up to 5.00am for only a few seconds of boxing.

It wasn’t the only early disappointment, the Welsh anthem sung by some woman who was not Katherine Jenkins. Probably out on the town with Amy Winehouse.

Nor did we have John Rawling commentating, instead the job went to Dave Croft, a man usually who has to cover the darts, snooker and rugby league on the Beeb when Clare Balding is busy.

He was soon into his stride.

“If you bottle the energy in here tonight you could light every skyscraper in Manhattan for the rest of the week,” he told us. Certainly a cheap alternative as the credit crunch continues to bite.

But when the crunch came for Joe he came through with flying colours, and with the aid of dad Enzo’s colourful language in the corner, there was no stopping him.

There were some dangerous moments, Crofty telling us that he had a Welsh dragon at the bottom of his spangly trunks. Nasty. Going to take more tha a cotton bud and Vaseline to treat that.

Then again with Roy losing more blood than at a vamprie’s bring your own party there would have been plenty of medical support.

But as is so often the way, the best quote of the night belonged to Steve Bunce, who described Calzaghe’s knock-down as going down like syrup off a spoon.

Boxing in the Big Toffee Apple anyone?

Reds and Blues are all white with ITV

Merseyside police are on the hunt for the sniper who cut Stevie G down in his prime FAR be it from me to point an accusing digit at ITV but is there any chance they might stop being so biased towards English teams? No, I didn’t think so.

And when it’s two England captains involved there’s more blind eyes turned than darts night down at Stevie Wonder’s local. The Stevie in question was Mr Gerrard, who appeared to be shot as he approached the penalty box.

Jim Beglin’s ‘first impression was that Gerrard made more of it that there was’. No, his first impression was of Tom Daley, and I’m surprised someone didn’t reach him a towel to dry off before scoring.

It was the same in Rome, where John Terry basically caught the ball before scoring but the Captain’s Trophy just hit him according to Clive Tyldesley. I expect to see him at Croke Park with skills like that.

And just to show the English don’t have the monopoly on myopia, Craig Doyle played the green card when there was mention of more crowd trouble in Rome, where the Champions League Final is to be played.

“There is a little stadium in Dublin called Croke Park that could handle it,” he said.

Craig, remember the last time English fans came to Dublin and started refurbishing Lansdowne Road long before the bulldozers moved in.

O’Sullivan get a new job as Kidney’s analysis machine

David Humphreys and Eddie O’Sullivan make up thanks to Stephen Watson.I REALLY hope that when Eddie O’Sullivan turned up at Broadcasting House on Saturday evening, someone brought David Humphreys to meet him with the words ‘have you met?’

It was nice to see the two reunited for Ireland’s clash with the mighty men from Mapleland, but Canada were so ordinary they may as well have played Matalan.

Mind you, I can’t be sure it was Humph, as the collar on his shirt was so big and crisp that it could have been Harry Hill sitting there.

With Eddie coming this way we had to send someone the other way and this honour went to Thomas Niblock, who was taking no chances in the deep south — bedecked in green scarf, white shirt and gold tie.

It was a bit weird to hear O’Sullivan talking about the great crop of players coming through for Declan Kidney to use.

Hmm, did no-one tell you about them when you were coach then?

Over on Sky’s Rugby Club we had Sir Clive Woodward saying an England coach needed to be arrogant, but in a nice way.

Halfway there then.

New England head coach Martin Johnson also needs to be a ‘warrior, but has to play chess too.’

Not sure if chess is his game, you get the feeling he may struggle with ludo.