I back Harry Maguire because I was also attacked in Greece and cops nicked ME

AFTER the fracas in a Mykonos bar, the enormously headed Harry Maguire tried to argue that he was merely trying to defend his sister, who’d been stabbed and fed a date rape drug by a bunch of Albanian gangsters.

Not since we heard about the eye-testing drive to Barnard Castle have we heard such a lame and preposterous excuse.

But, that said, I’m not even remotely convinced that Harry is guilty of very much at all.

Let me begin by saying that I am not a Manchester United fan. I cheer, in fact, when they lose.

So there is no footballing reason why I’d leap to the defence of their captain.
But I feel duty bound to tell you a story . . . 

Many years ago, on another Greek island, I was enjoying a night out when my girlfriend was touched up by a disgusting-looking Greek yobbo in a bar.

After I spoke to him about this, quite forcefully, he and his friends took me outside where they punched me a few times, tied me into an interesting reef knot and then, when I was lying helpless in the street, urinated all over me.

In something of a state, I climbed into the Suzuki jeep I’d rented and, with my ­girlfriend and another couple who were on holiday with us, headed back to our holiday house.

This was not the end of the story, however, because the Greeks who’d beaten me up leaped on to their powerful Japanese sports bikes and gave chase.

Something immediately became apparent.

A rented 1.0-litre Suzuki jeep is not as fast as a Kawasaki GPZ900R or a Suzuki GSX-R750 or indeed any of the bikes our pursuers were using.

So soon, they were all around us.

And shortly after that, I turned into a side street which was a dead end.

We ran. We hid. We played cat and mouse for hours until eventually, we found a phone box and called the police, who arrived on the scene within minutes.

Phew.

Not phew, actually, because even though we were standing right next to two policemen, the gang ran up to us, wrestled my mate to the ground and started kicking him.

I got a punch in the head and then, astonishingly, my mate and I were arrested for “abusing the Greek flag”.

We hadn’t seen a flag. We’d done nothing wrong at all.

After the yobs rode off on their bikes, scot-free, and the girls took the Suzuki home, we were bundled into the police car and then, after plod broke the key off in the ignition (it was a Fiat), we were told to get back out again and push.

It’s annoying, having to push your own police car to the cells.

But then, as we reached a long, downhill stretch, we exchanged glances, stopped pushing and, as the car rolled on without us, we scarpered.

I’ve harboured a deep distrust of anything the Greek police do or say ever since.

Even to the point where, in an honesty contest between them and the slab-headed ­captain of Manchester United, I find myself siding with Harry.

You've boobed, officer

THE French police became an international laughing stock this week after two officers told a girl sunbathing topless on a beach to put her bikini top back on.

“Ha!” chuckled the world. Banning topless sunbathing in the South of France is like banning gondolas from Venice or Beefeaters from the Tower of London*.

My beef, however, is with the people who reported the topless girl to the police in the first place

They say they found her breasts upsetting.

Really?

So they’d looked upon a world ravaged with disease, at an economy on the brink of collapse, at refugees drowning in the Channel and at all the riots in America.

And they’d decided their biggest problem was a couple of exposed nipples.
*I’m surprised they have not got round to this yet.

A long weight

TO avoid the risk of contamination at an airport, a friend of mine decided that rather than fly to her holiday in the South of France, she would drive.

Unfortunately, she has a Tesla.

This meant she had to spend many hours sitting in cafes and motorway service stations waiting for the batteries to charge

So when she arrived in Antibes after the three-day trip, she was a stone heavier than when she set off.

Cheers to Rowley

THE Fast Show wasn’t the funniest show ever to grace our TV screens.

But it was up there. Maybe even top three.

And now it’s coming back for a one-off special in which the stars are interviewed, in character, about the programme’s history and legacy.

It’ll be on UKTV (me neither) but whatever it is, I shall find it because hearing Rowley Birkin’s views will be priceless.

Unless, of course, he can’t remember anything because he was very, very drunk at the time.

Tanks, but no thanks

THERE are whisperings in regimental headquarters that the British Army is about to scrap or sell every single one of its 227 tanks.

Naturally, this has caused people with waxed moustaches and salmon-pink Sunday trousers to go red in the face with rage.

“The British Army. With no tanks. Madness.”

Or is it? Because in any of the battles we are likely to fight in the next few years, tanks are no use at all.

And even if we do end up in an old-school war, who exactly would we be able to beat with only 227 of them?

Spain has more. Switzerland has more. Cambodia has 300. Bangladesh has nearly 600. Egypt has 4,500. China has 6,500.

And if the balloon went up, Russia could turn up at the battlefield with 13,000.

Factor in the tank- busting drones and the anti-tank fighter aircraft and our entire force would be wiped out in about three minutes.

Britain was the first country in the world to make a tank 105 years ago.

And we should now be the first country to get rid of them. Because turning up at a modern battle in such a thing would be like landing on the D-Day beaches armed only with a sword.

The tank had its time and, for us at least, that time has now passed.

Embrace diversity

A FORMER BBC boss has told an audience of people called Giles that “diversity” is something the TV industry must embrace.

Roger Mosey, a former head of BBC News, says that too many decisions at the Corporation are still being made by white, London-based liberals.

Dead right, mate. Diversity is vital.

Which is why we should hand large chunks of the show-commissioning system over to people who at the moment have zero say in what they watch.

Yes, that’s people from ethnic minorities.

But it’s also people who work on building sites, people with northern accents, people who drive white vans, who work in Greggs, want to sing Land Of Hope And Glory at the Proms and yes, even people who voted for Brexit.

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