Keith Duggan/Sideline Cut: "Put that coffee down," is the order from the top of the sports department. Right there and then, you knew it was going to be a bad day.

It is early morning and outside a thunderstorm is brewing, causing all the candles in the sports department to flicker and throw alarming shadows. We huddle over the typewriters, banging out previews, keeping the heads down.

"The letter 'r' on me keyboard is bust," mutters the soccer man. "How am I supposed to spell Ronaldinho?"

It is a dark room, the sports office, and has never gone in for much by way of the fanciful. We like it simple. A plain, old Armitage sink with a bar of lard and a cold water faucet drips heroically in the corner. There we make our ablutions on the occasional day we might have to meet the GAA president or the bank manager or womankind.

Stacks of ancient cricket results are piled in one corner, gathering dust. They say a cricket correspondent from the 1950s burrowed in too deep one day and never returned. The carpet is held together by the sticky residue of old liquor spills. A transistor, stuck permanently on AM, broadcasts the sound of static. A sign saying "The Facts Stop Here" has been tacked to the wall. The office is colourless except for one Hawaiian shirt draped over a wooden chair, discarded by the golf or maybe the rugby man between assignments. Raging pink tickets to a gala dinner peek from the breast pocket. On many lunch breaks we have argued about what a gala dinner is.

"Coffee," announces the boss, "is for losers only."

Nobody is drinking coffee but that is hardly the point. The boss has in his hand a sheet of paper and his eyes blaze in triumph. He stands at the top of the room and through the murky daylight, we see him practise an imaginary golf swing. He likes the trajectory of the shot and follows it over the shelf where we keep the pencil sharpeners and down the 13th at Augusta. We gulp. The floor boards creek as the boss makes his way where we sit behind our typewriters.

"Here, Sideline," he says. (It's a pet name.) "Read and learn."

The sheet of paper floats down through the candle smoke and lands upon the desk. With trembling, ink-smeared paws, Sideline begins to read a note advising on how best to advance Sideline's career.

"Dear Sports Editor, Please do me and sports fans everywhere a favour and sack that ******. Yours, etc."

When Sideline looks up, the clattering of the other typewriters has fallen quiet and the room is deserted. The boss towers among the cobwebs. Big tears are welling in Sideline's sour eyes, mainly because he has never seen such beautiful handwriting and is jealous. The boss is pointing to the letter and he is delivering a sermon about the way it should be.

This is the way it should be, he explains. You have a point to make and you make it, clearly and impeccably. It is the basic premise of any column. You need to have something to say. Cherish this as a template. Stick to your guns. No ambiguity. Spit it out. Say it like a man.

"You never open your mouth," he says finally, "unless you know what the shot is. There. I'm done with ya."

And then he is gone. Sideline blinks and takes a deep breath. This day was always going to come and, now that it has arrived, the sense is of relief. Getting found out, they call it. Still, this is a dark hour and, in need of solace, Sideline calls every friend he ever had only to discover that the number has been changed. Lonely and confused, Sideline calls the Samaritans and puts his case across.

"Well," says the Samaritan reluctantly, "the letter does seem to have a point."

Sideline agrees this is true. In life, you are either a ****** or you are not and the evidence against Sideline is stacked higher than the cricket results. Only last week we treated people to the breezy declaration that Limerick trained near De Valera's picturesque birthplace, something that must have surprised the hurlers given Dev was born in New York. But this column has always been deft with changing little incidental details about public figures, such as their names, their nationalities and their general achievements. The vain hope was that it added a dash of much-needed charm.

When sent out on field missions, matters have been equally hopeless. Not so long ago, we turned up at Portlaoise for a game and congratulated ourselves on beating the crowd. Half an hour before throw-in, Sideline's jalopy still had the field to itself and it dawned on us the venue was elsewhere.

This winter, Sideline got into a muddle trying to deliver some words from Murrayfield rugby ground. It ended up with Sideline holding a flashy computer aloft as he walked across a zebra crossing calling the words down a phone. Leisurely, the motorist watching this procession rolled down his window and gently, even sorrowfully, ensured Sideline he looked like a ******.

Once an opinion spreads, there is no escaping it and in no time, it has reached the inner sanctum of the sports office through a precise little missive whose very neatness is a glaring indictment of Sideline's ineptitude. J'accuse!

Feeling doomed and tragic, Sideline reaches for the bottle of emergency bourbon we keep in the sports department, lights a smoke and prepares to do the honourable thing. A last walk around the office and it is time to bang out a stiff and dignified letter to the boss. This is delivered and we clear out the desk. Through the rubble we stumble upon another letter, sealed and recently post-dated. Two in a month! Sideline's tiny head is spinning. Again, it is short and it has a point. It seems to suggest - that is, it definitively claims - Sideline is a joyless sort of fellow and socially inadequate at that. A "creep", in short.

Salvation! Those observations were like a balsam to Sideline's weary brow. Stern in their way, yes, but unarguably a step up from the unequivocal position of ******. Things could change for the better. There could be joy. A few gala dinners would improve the social thing.

So Sideline scampers up to retrieve his proud letter from the boss. Too late! The boss is staring at it with a perplexed look on his face.

"See, you are at it again," he moans. "What does this even mean?" He holds the valedictory between forefinger and thumb. The letter 'r' is missing from all the crucial words, including regret and resignation. Sideline must have used the ruined typewriter. "Say it clearly," spells out the boss and crumples up Sideline's noble retreat from the sports game. Sideline watches, unsure whether to laugh or cry as the boss flicks the paper over his head and into the wastebasket.

For better or for worse, there is no way out. *****d is probably the only expression to use, under the circumstances.