You know you've made it when 'you know who' is you

TV View: Everybody seemed to be feeling their age the last few days. Maybe it had something to do with the sight of Jack Nicklaus bidding farewell to the British Open, 18 majors to his name, but Peter Alliss, for one, could remember the American's first like it happened the day before yesterday.

By the way: most men become obsessive about golf when they retire - so what's Jack going to do?

Anyway, the BBC man was definitely feeling his age. On Saturday he even seemed to nod off in the commentary box.

"Keeping you up Peter, are we," asked Wayne Grady when his question to his colleague went unanswered.

"No, no," said Peter, "I've just been on with my American friends on ABC . . . Young people exhaust me a bit," he sighed.

Funnily enough, maintaining the theme, Ted Walsh was wondering where the years had gone himself at the Curragh yesterday, where he watched his daughter Katie win the "Ladies' Derby". Ted still thought of Katie as a one-year-old, "jumping about the place", so it came as a bit of shock when Robert Hall reminded him that that was 20 years ago.

Adding to his sense of the years flying by, he talked about Katie being a handy Three-Day Eventer, that she had a good horse by the name of Stoneybrook, one they had bred themselves.

"I rode her grandmother in Wexford in 1969 to win a bumper," he told us, shaking his head in disbelief upon realising that that liaison was now 36 years old.

If Ted had fond memories of Stoneybrook's Granny, he was less impressed yesterday with another lady horse, Dash To The Top. We've learnt by now that there's nothing that gets on Ted's wick more than an uppety woman horse with notions about herself, four-legged versions of Naomi Campbell or J-Lo, if you like.

Divas with long faces.

When he spotted Johnny Murtagh having to walk Irish Oaks favourite Dash To The Top a quarter of a mile to the starting gates, just because she didn't fancy carrying him there, he'd had enough.

"She's just being a madam," he said, "she's not broken out between the cheeks of her backside, she's not sweating down her neck, she just has an air about her, she's just being a madam."

"Um," said Robert.

"The only problem Johnny has now," Ted continued, "is if she gets halfway across the flat and she decides to stick her toes in. She looks an auld bitch who's going to just do that, doesn't she?"

"Um," said Robert.

"The worry I'd have now," Ted persisted, "is that she'd just plank herself. She's like a little child who throws itself down on the ground in the supermarket. A right madam."

To Robert's relief, Dash To The Top made it to the start without planking herself (and so Ted calmed down a bit), although that might well have been how her backers responded when they saw her ambling home in fifth place.

Incidentally, our favourite annual sporting moment is when Robert and Ted are obliged to comment on the Best Dressed Lady competition at this meeting, a task they never seem entirely comfortable with.

Yesterday?

"Lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely feathers," said Robert.

"You're a real arse-licker," said Ted.

"That's fashion for you," said Robert, before seamlessly switching back to horsey matters.

Back at the British Open, our personal highlight came after the second round when the BBC's Dougie Donnelly interviewed Jose Maria Olazabal. Dougie congratulated Jose on his round, but asked if "you know who" played anywhere near his best over the final two rounds would everyone else just be battling for second place.

"Oh yes," said Jose, conceding that "he" was in imperious form and that everyone was just trying to keep up with "him".

It was a five- or six-minute conversation without the name of "you know who" ever being mentioned. But, sure, it didn't have to be: "you know who" was plenty.

Still, you kind of know you've cracked it in your chosen field when every member of the television audience tuning in to Dougie and Jose's chat knew "you know who" was you.

The BBC showed us the engraver putting the name of "you know who" on the auld jug before he even made it to the 18th green. What if he six-putted? Is it possible to dis-engrave? No need.

As Mark James put it, speaking of "you know who" in the closing stages, "He's still a rabbit in a greyhound race".