WHERE would we be without sport? It is X Factor without the irritation of Simon Cowell. It is pure real life soap opera.

Congratulations to Jenson Button, Britain’s new world champion. He hasn’t won a Grand Prix since June 7, went into yesterday’s race in Brazil needing to finish third to clinch the title, but came fifth and was still crowned champion.

No matter what your sport, to reach the top of the tree is a great achievement.

Button’s story is inspirational. He became Britain’s youngest Formula One driver in 2000, but struggled for years as an also-ran. He persevered, enduring the cruel knocks that only the British can dish out to an under-achieving sportsman, and from the brink – his team was all but bust in March and he was out of a job – has pulled off a remarkable victory.

The message – stick in there and try, try, try again – is a good one.

And then there’s the beach ball goal of the season, Liverpool deflated in Sunderland by an inflatable holiday toy bearing their own club crest.

If that irony wasn’t delicious enough, radio listeners on Saturday heard BBC journalists rushing around asking the big question. Hundreds dying in wars around the world, millions starving in Africa, and yet the most important poser was whether the item that had deflected the ball into the net was a beach ball or a balloon.

Last night, Sky featured an erudite and earnest discussion between three highlypaid men in suits who spent many minutes analysing the role/roll of the beach ball.

Using great meteorological insight and freeze frame detection techniques, they scribbled in red pen all over their screen working out lines of sight, directions of attack and probabilities of chance.

This wasn’t just a fluke. This was a moment of destiny like when the iceberg became detached from the Antarctic iceshelf and started its inexorable journey into the path of the unsinkable Titanic.

Po-faced commentators have said it is disgraceful the referee allowed the goal as the beach ball’s “outside interference”

clearly breached football’s laws.

Of course it isn’t! We need such moments of levity to send us back to work in a recession-ravaged world with the hint of a smile on our faces, and sport is the greatest provider of such moments.