So there we were, just the two of us, lying in bed on Saturday morning half-listening to the radio and trying to come up with a plan. The columnist bereft of ideas and his seven-week-old assistant both looking for inspiration.
A hugely enjoyable Ulster football championship aside, sporting life here has lapsed into a close season torpor with most minds focused on which part of Donegal to decamp to for the duration of the July marching season. But none of that helps get a column written and as the last rituals of a late breakfast sidled towards lunchtime, decision time loomed ever closer. What, oh what, to write about?
A familiar voice from the most unlikely confines of BBC Radio Five Live opened up a possibility. They had Joe Rice, chairman and sugar daddy of Irish League side Newry Town, on rapping away in those sing-song south Down tones about their InterToto Cup game in Croatia that evening. Hrvatski Dragovolijac were providing the opposition and the prospect of this game was causing barely controllable mirth in the London studio.
A team from Newry playing in a European tie was being presented as a scenario of side-splitting hilarity. To his credit, Joe Rice played along and tried to use the whole interview as an opportunity to build up a dossier on the Croatian players. But even he had to call a halt when the Five Live presenter repeatedly tried to return to the less than obvious comic implications of someone called "Dessie" playing for Newry.
That Dessie is, of course, the much travelled Dessie Gorman, aka "The Hawk", but said presenter had evidently never heard the name used before in a sporting context and he was going to milk this lamest of jokes for all it was worth. We were not amused and the Newry Town column idea was nipped firmly in the bud.
But something good did come out of it as we made a mental note to invite the Hawk to become the honorary president of the soon-to-be-formed Stop Making Fun Out of the Name Desmond Association. That'll show those Five Live jokers. Newry lost 1-0, by the way.
Darren Clarke's dogged and determined performance at the US Open offered the momentary possibility of a theme for the week. Golf always seems to go down well in this parish and there was also the enticing prospect of using the platform to challenge John Daly to a game of "Keep An Eleven Off Your Card" around windswept Ardglass when he is over here for the Irish Open. But the unforgiving Pinehurst course gradually wore Darren down and another great idea drifted away on the breeze.
This was getting serious and we were desperate. For a few brief moments the idea of dipping into the murky and scandal-riven world of Northern bowls was even given serious consideration. A few weeks ago an aggrieved bowler had gone to the High Court in Belfast in an attempt to have a decision that had been made against him reversed. Bizarrely, this perceived injustice did not relate to anything as dramatic as an unreasonable disqualification, suspension or fine.
Instead, his gripe was that he had not been allowed to compete because his bowls were yellow rather than the regulation black. Why yellow bowls were ever considered worthy of the attentions of the upper echelons of the Northern Ireland judiciary was never adequately explained and their attitude was appropriately disdainful. Some compromise was cobbled together so that he could play on with his yellow bowls.
Onwards to Casement Park on Saturday afternoon for the Ulster hurling championship semi-finals. As the wind blew the rain into the dingy confines of the old stand, the mind began to wander during a fairly miserable afternoon when Derry edged closer to that elusive championship breakthrough in the first game and Antrim trampled all over a limp London side in the second. These are just a few of the questions that seem destined to remain unanswered.
What does Derry's Geoffrey McGonigle ask for when he sits down in the barber's chair? And how much do the coiffeurs of Dungiven dare to charge him? Why exactly are half the Down hurling panel on strike? What are their demands? Is there a sight in Irish sport more enjoyable than the Ally Elliott sidestep? Why did London bother? Is Ulster hurling always going to be football's poor relation? How do they manage to hide the men's toilets so well at Casement?
Into Sunday and a quick trawl through the sports pages of the local papers in a frenzied search for the germ of an idea. The waning Ulster influence on the Ireland rugby team - the European champions only supplied three of the 15 who played against Australia in Perth - emerges briefly as a possibility but is promptly shelved in case any attempt at in-depth analysis reveals a gaping lack of general knowledge about the game. Besides, rugby columns are best left to the dark days of December and January.
There are still more questions than answers. How do you read bowls results? Is there a handicapping system so that the better players have to carry extra weight in the pockets of their blazers? Are you really only as good as your last stint out on the rink? Who plays cricket here? Does anyone bother to go along and watch? How did the Pakistan fast bowler, Shoaib Akhtar, manage to emerge from spending last summer playing for Strabane with all his faculties still intact? Did he ever nip across the Border to Lifford for cheap petrol when the English pound was strong?
By this time it was Sunday afternoon and we were on the way to Breffni Park. The staging of a women's junior championship match as a senior football opener for the first time appeared to offer plenty of opportunity for jocularity. But the women of Fermanagh and Cavan soon put paid to that by serving up a contest that contained more skill, commitment and excitement than most of the minor matches between the boys who usually grace such occasions.
No aimless long kicking here, as the emphasis was placed firmly on keeping possession and moving the ball quickly from one end to the other. To say it was an eye-opener for the curious early arrivals would be patronising to the women involved but if the exercise managed to make even one or two of the sceptics think again about their old prejudices then it was more than worthwhile. But still no column.
Then late on Sunday evening, salvation. News from the heady, white-hot competition that is the Tyrone junior football championship was that the mighty Drumragh Sarsfields GFC had marched triumphantly into the semi-finals with a 1-10 to 2-4 win over the kingpins of Castlederg. This was the chance we had been waiting for all weekend to indulge in all the old war stories of heroic performances at left half back on an all-conquering under-16 side and travel back in time to where it all began. But it had all come too late. The column had just been filled.
