At this time of year, many, many people suddenly get the urge to stroll down to their local tennis courts for a set or two, having never picked up a tennis racquet since precisely a year previously. Take a stroll through any local park this weekend and you will see a plethora of overweight souls huffing and puffing around a court desperately trying to hit a small yellow ball.

So it may be no surprise to hear on the grapevine, well the FT anyway, that Bank of England supreme Mervyn King has been playing a lot of tennis lately. Besides his normal partner, cabinet secretary Gus O'Donnell, Merv has also been playing with former Wimbledon ladies champ Martina Hingis. Lets hope he managed to put up a better show than TS does during its annual tennis Saturday.