"Basically, they were a nuclear explosion and I'm Martin Landau" explains Stubbs

The millionaire presenter Ray Stubbs explained his latest theories to the goggled audience of Grandstand last weekend between racing from New Toastershire and darts from some pub or other.

"Everything was ticking along" he explained "with the viewers being the planet Earth and we at BBC Sport being the moon. Then Sky Sports and Bloody Jeff Stelling come along like a huge bang and we're sent spinning off into oblivion."

Receipts were found in Mr Stubbs' Winnebago for boxed sets of all fifty plus episodes of Gerry Anderson's "Space 1999" and colleagues reported not having seen Mr Stubbs, of no fixed dental work, since the credits rolled on the previous week's show.

"But I'm Martin Landau - leader of Moonbase Alpha - and Claire Balding is Barbara Bain. Only without the soft focus close-ups which, not wanting to sound cruel, might make Claire look a bit less like Desperate Dan."

"Stelling and his people are like Battlestar Galactica. They've got a really fancy ship while all we've got is one moon that we can't even steer but - and here is the thing that makes Stelling sick to his backside - Galactica only got one season. '99 got two. That means that BBC Sport will win in the long term. And we don't have to worry about Cylons which is just as well as they've got bigger guns than we have. Ours are rather like staple guns."

Jeff Stelling was unable to comment as he was in conference with his personal numerologist.