Sky launches Sky Sports Handshakes

SKY Sports is launching a new subscriber-only channel focused entirely on sporting event handshakes.

The launch follows Man City manager and lager brand Manuel Pellegrini’s refusal to shake hands with Chelsea boss José Mourinho, which experts agree was far more thrilling than the match itself.

Sky Sports Handshakes will show every handshake in the Premier League and Championship from multiple angles in slow motion with expert analysis, with the BBC broadcasting an evening highlights package.

Hastily-retrained handshake analyst Jamie Redknapp said: “Handshakes have at least as much bearing on who’ll win the league as all that 4-4-2 drivel.

“Is Moyes’s soggy lettuce leaf the reason United aren’t even in the European places? Does Mark Hughes need to stop making friends and start grinding knuckles for Stoke?

“We answer the questions, and showcase our new EagleEye handshake camera which can  pinpoint the very instant a handshake crosses the line from stridently heterosexual to having a gay subtext.”

Sports fan Bill McKay said: “Shaking hands used to be a man’s game, without all this slow clasping and caressing you get nowadays.

“Brian Clough, for example – now there was a manager – used to shake hands with rival managers by holding his hand at head height, curling the fingers into a fist and smashing it hard into their face.”

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Everyone urged to pretend HS2 is a good idea

THE government is calling for a consensus on pretending a new high speed rail link will not be a gigantic waste of money.

Downing Street is concerned that some people are still refusing to ignore the obvious drawbacks of the multi-trillion pound catastrophe-in-waiting.

Prime minister David Cameron said: “It would be much easier for me, personally, if everyone could change their opinion. Even if they don’t really mean it.

“Go on, just say that you like it. And even if you still think it will be utterly pointless, at least say that you think the trains look fancy.

“Then I can convince myself that we are in complete agreement.”

Mr Cameron is calling on Britain to ‘dig deep’ and find ‘new reserves of self-delusion’.

He added: “Britain doesn’t need to be brilliant, it just needs to pretend that it is.”