Outside Edge

"Jennifer Figge is first woman to swim Atlantic" claimed headlines last week, above stories stating she had swum 2,400 miles from the Cape Verde Islands to Trinidad in 24 days. Hmm... 100 miles a day; impressive. Let's get the calculator out. To do that, Super Jenny would have had to swim non-stop all the way faster than the men's world record for 1500m freestyle, 14min 34.56sec. Next day, the story changed: while her support boat did the full distance, she popped in and out of the water, swimming, oh, 250 miles. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story: the first rule of journalism. Maybe Jennifer should take it up.

5

The number of letters of reprimand Kevin Quill, the swimming coach at Seymour High School in Connecticut, received before finally being fired after dishing out T-shirts to the girls' team with "The Wetter The Better" emblazoned on the front. First Michael Phelps. Then Jennifer Figge. Now this. Clean up your act, swimmers of America.

Love by numbers of the week

Famous shirt numbers – Diego Maradona: No 10; George Best: No 7; Dino Drpic: No 69. Well no, actually, because the Croatian defender has had his request for this tasteful homage to his love for Mrs Drpic, aka 'Playboy' model Nives Celzijus, turned down by his new club, Karlsrühe of the Bundesliga. He joined them after being shipped out by Dinamo Zagreb following Nives's revelation that they had made love one night in the centre circle of Dinamo's Maksimir Stadium; with the floodlights on. No 96 is also out, apparently, in case he starts doing handstands, so he is having to content himself with prosaic old No 11.

Good week for

Tony McCoy, the 13-time champion National Hunt jockey, rode his 3,000th winner... Peter Moores, recently sacked as England's head cricket coach, hired in the same role by Lancashire... Tiger Woods, the world golf No 1, became a father for the second time with the birth of Charlie Axel... and the Ngati Toa Maori tribe, awarded the intellectual property rights to the traditional haka by the New Zealand government.

Bad week for

Karren Brady, the managing director of Birmingham City, rearrested as part of an inquiry into alleged corruption... Setanta, the subscription TV channel, struggling after losing half their Premier League football matches... Indian Cricket League, cancelled next month's Twenty20 tournament citing the financial crisis... and John Leighton-Dixon, axed as the performance director of British Shooting following a drastic reduction in funding.

Pajama game of the week

Exciting news from Toronto, if that's not a contradiction in terms: two British fighters are making their mark in the all-female professional Pillow Fighting League – "Real women. Real fights. Real pillows" – based there. Jessica Martin (nom de guerre: Messy Jessy), originally out of Chiswick, west London, has amassed a won 4, lost 1 record, while 5ft Abbie Logan (Abbi Roadkill) from Kelso stands at 9-4. But they've still got a way to go to catch the world champion, Carmen Monoxide (22-8). And they'd better watch out for Polly Esther, who lists her favourite movies as 'Fist of Legend', 'Fight Club', 'A History of Violence' and 'Misery'. More details, if you really must, available at gopfl.com.

s.redfern@independent.co.uk