London: It’s a happy birthday to the respected theatre, film and television actor Sir Michael Gambon, who if we ignore the Harry Potter movies is best known for his role as Philip Marlow in The Singing Detective. He’s 72 today.

One of the songs on the soundtrack of the fondly remembered Dennis Potter serial is a version of Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. The thrust of that song’s lyric is concerned with eliminating the negative, latching onto the affirmative, spreading joy up to the maximum, bringing gloom down to the minimum, and not messing with Mr In-Between, who sounds like a right rum sod and no mistake.

So if it’s a good enough philosophy for Jonah in the whale and Noah in the ark, it’s good enough for the Rumour Mill. Let’s have faith!

Radomir Antic, who won the 1996 Spanish league with Atltico Madrid, is in the frame to be the new boss of Blackburn Rovers. That’d be a great appointment. Ian Holloway of Blackpool is also being considered. And quite right too, he seems like a stand-up guy.

Juventus and AC Milan both want Nani. It’d be a shame to see the talented Portuguese winger leave these shores, but hopefully he’ll entertain supporters of Soccer Game in Italy. Manchester United will only get £12 million (Dh70.68 million) for him, instead of the £20 million they’re after, but they intend to splash whatever cash they get on a replacement in Porto winger James Rodrguez, so if that happens everyone’s happy. Except possibly fans of Porto, but it’s a bit early to be thinking this through.

Liverpool are interested in PSV Eindhoven striker Jurgen Locadia. The 18-year-old recently scored three goals in 11 minutes on his league debut against VVV Venlo. What a debut. And what a great rumour, one of the best in a rare old while.

Southampton are also looking to jigger PSV by making off with their attacker Jeremain Lens. Poor old PSV! Po’ Philips Sport Vereniging’s a-cold! But the £5.5 million they’ll get for the winger-cum-striker will buy them an awful lot of CD players, plugs and lightbulbs, which they get on discount anyway, so there’s that. Arsenal are planning a £15 million bid for Atletico Madrid striker Adrin Lpez, but that doesn’t rule out bids for Fiorentina’s Stevan Jovetic or Athletic Bilbao’s Fernando Llorente. Juventus might queer the deal for Llorente, but look at it this way, if it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, well it’s only football, so pipe down.

And this conceit hasn’t been worth it at all, really, has it. But at least we didn’t attempt to riff on There’s A Fellow Waiting In Poughkeepsie.