But who cares, when the basics are such a hassle? This is a handset for serious fashion lovers, or those with time on their hands.Nintendo DSpounds 1000870 6060 247; The Game Boy has dominated the portable gaming market for 15 years, but there are an increasing number of consoles trying to steal its crown. With its bold colour scheme and slim dimensions it looks more like a make-up case, complete with mirror, than a phone. For those who care about technicalities, it has 256Mb of RAM, an 80Gb hard drive and 1.42GHz processing speed (for pounds 50 less, you get 40Gb and 1.25GHz). Some will need to fork out for a keyboard, monitor and mouse, but that doesn’t detract from what is a very desirable product at an equally attractive price tag.Nokia 7280pounds 389 (contract free)08700 555777; 7280 is one of three phones in Nokia’s new art deco range. As far as the front five is concerned, it’s a question of balance. We think this balance is right for this particular game.”And the Welsh balance? Interesting. Martyn Williams, the back-row craftsman from Cardiff who toured Australia with the British and Irish Lions in 2001, passed a fitness test on his injured neck yesterday and will win his 50th cap – a bonus of considerable proportions for Robinson’s opposite number, Mike Ruddock, who had resigned himself to losing both Williams and Colin Charvis, the two open-side specialists of genuine class available to him.Ruddock knows Williams will cause England some hassle if the Red Dragon tight forwards lay foundations of sufficient depth, so he has recalled the 6ft 5in, 18st lock Robert Sidoli to arms.

He talked up Tait without overdosing on adulation for an outside centre whose Premiership appearances for Newcastle are only just in double figures, and was wholly convincing on the promotion of Ben Kay, the Leicester lock, ahead of Steve Borthwick, the Bath second row whose performances of late would, had there been any justice in the world, have assured him of a place in the side, rather than among the replacements.”Steve is unlucky – desperately unlucky,” Robinson conceded “But for this match, we feel we need an extra ball-carrier. And, while the Mac mini sounds like something you order with fries, its design doesn’t disappoint. “Rugby is a physical sport,” he added, darkly.And the injuries, of which there are too many for comfort? Robinson objected to the suggestion that he had named a theoretical team, insisting that the selected XV would take the field. We also want as much mobility as we can get, and Ben has it over Steve in terms of pace around the field. He’s also a World Cup winner who has been put under real pressure on many occasions and come through. “When you prepare with this kind of intensity, you tend to pick up a knock or two.”Yet for all his defensiveness in a public forum, Robinson was quietly confident that he had hit the nail on the head in terms of his choices for this opening game of the grand old annual tournament.

“Matt Dawson has come through well, Jamie Noon has been fine, Andy Hazell is out there training, Lewis Moody is running again and will train fully in the next 24 hours,” he said. When the coach was quizzed about Grewcock’s latest disappearance into the red mist – prompted, as per usual, by the former England captain Lawrence Dallaglio during a Premiership match last weekend – he bit his lip before stating that he expected his resident enforcer to “play his natural game” at the Millennium Stadium. Andy Robinson, the only man on earth who looks more angry the happier he is, spent much of yesterday smiling at people – an unnerving development, given the death’s head quality of his grin. England’s coach was pressed on a range of subjects, from the ward-full of injuries affecting his Six Nations starting line-up to the presence of the 18-year-old Mathew Tait in the red rose back division, via the disciplinary concerns raised by the Bath lock and troublemaker-in-chief Danny Grewcock He was more than a little touchy on each and every issue. The club have yet to reach a settlement with head coach Mike Gregory, who has been on sick leave since the Challenge Cup final last May and is not expected to return.Meanwhile, South Sydney have turned down an approach from Wigan to release their captain Bryan Fletcher on the eve of the new NRL season.St Helens hooker Keiron Cunningham will make his comeback after knee surgery in his own testimonial match against Hull at Knowsley Road tonight. The Great Britain international was not expected back until later this month but has made a rapid recovery.London Broncos coach Tony Rea has named former Canberra Raiders scrum-half Mark McLinden as captain, the fifth overseas player to be made a Super League club captain for the new season.. Wigan have welcomed back an old boy from Australia and are also thought to be looking Down Under for a new prop.

“But the feeling was that the fantastic results achieved papered over the cracks.”Sport England has also withheld its four-year funding figure for athletics until the sport goes further towards adopting the measures recommended in last year’s Foster Review.A total of £315m has been allocated for the next four years towards assisting development and improving participation levels in 32 sports.Only four codes apart from athletics have seen their funding drop. Farrar, who played in the NRL for Canterbury Bankstown and was involved in four Grand Finals from 1984-1988, was a member of Wigan’s Challenge Cup final-winning team in 1993.He joins a triumvirate of ex-Wigan players on the backroom staff at the JJB Stadium, where the recently-retired Adrian Lam has been appointed to assist Denis Betts. Gymnastics drops marginally from £2.3m to £2.2m; karate from £500,000 to £250,000; hockey, where the women failed to reach the Olympics and the men finished ninth, has the biggest drop, from £4.25m to £2,348,000, and boxing also loses out, although this sport will gain £1.2m over four years through the new Community Club development programme.Golf has the biggest gain, up from £1.3m last year to £2.07m.. “They’re doing pretty well in Formula One, so that gives me confidence that I too can compete.”. Athletics was the highest- profile loser yesterday as Sport England, responsible for grass roots investment, announced its funding for the next Olympic cycle. Last year’s figure of £2m will drop to £1.35m in 2005-6, a measure which reflects what is seen as the sport’s failure to maximise its medal success from Lottery investment. Today, I can see my dream of becoming India’s first F1 driver become a reality The last 48 hours have been very tough and very hectic.

We’ve had good news in the end, so it has eventually been worth all that.”Karthikeyan’s first task, before he gets on the track in the opening race of the season in Melbourne on 6 March, will be to get the super licence he needs to drive in Formula One.”The super licence is the most important thing right now. I’ve done well in other races but I still have to do about 300 kilometres over the next few weeks to get it. It won’t be a problem though,” he said.Karthikeyan, who currently drives in the World Series Championship, said he was confident.”I’ve raced with drivers such as Jenson Button and [Takuma] Sato before, and I’ve beaten them on my day,” he said. As a company we are also investing technology and we are here to get results We have always said that the hard step comes in 2005. This is the year in which we have to fight for the world titles, and we have to win races, in the plural.”The latter is a criticism of the team’s achievements in winning only one race, with Fernando Alonso, in 2003, and one, here in Monaco, with Jarno Trulli, in 2004.