WE might have all sorts of loony Toons playing around Newcastle United, and new multi-million pound mechanical miles-an-hour advertising hoardings being paraded ahead of the new Formula One season, but England and Europe will be relegated next week.

On the other side of the world Australia is the place to be, even if - bizarrely enough - Aussie ace Tony Smith has decided he is going to apply for Pommie citizenship when he returns to Blighty to resumes his job as England rugby league national coach.

Down Under the prospect of no-quarter-spared contests are gearing up for explosive starts next week.

I mean, can a cricket contest have been more eagerly savoured than the Third Test between Australia and India, which starts in Canberra next Wednesday?

Both teams go into the mid-point of the series with the Antipodean air filled with more rancour and recrimination than a whole battery of Premier League boardrooms.

Accusations of racism are at the core of the conflict between Australia and India, whose spinner Harbhajan Singh was initially banned for an alleged "monkey" comment made to Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds during the Second Test at Sydney, which the hosts finally won to equal their own world record of 16 successive Test triumphs.

India's reaction to the ban was to threaten to quit the tour. The tour will still go ahead but only with off-spinner Harbhajan now able to play because he has appealed against the ban and renowned West Indian umpire Steve Bucknor dramatically and disgracefully removed from officiating in the Third Test after the Indians complained about his competency following several mistakes in Sydney.

As if the petulant plot needed another twist, Australia's Brad Hodge has also been alleged to have made a racist remark. It all guarantees that the Canberra contest will be a sell-out even despite the fact rival captains Ricky Ponting and Anil Kumble are scheduled to meet before the game to help to diffuse a potential powder-keg explosion.

The ramifications of the dispute reinforce the belief that cricket's traditional white-based power-base is seismically shifting like an unstable tectonic plate east and south. The demand for cricket on the Indian sub-continent is immense. Cricketers are feted as superstars arguably more so than our Premier League footballers in England. When allied to a betting market that is worth billions of pounds and a target audience of many millions, then the traditions of England v Australia Ashes battles may well be subsumed by the hunger for collisions between Australia - still the cricket world's top performing nation - and either India or Pakistan.

And if your billy-can is not floated by the current cricket shenanigans, then there's always the first Grand Slam event of the tennis world.

The Australian Open volleys into action on Monday in Melbourne, where a massively increased security operation is underway.

Remember just 12 months ago when rioting scarred the tournament with running battles between rival Croatian and Serbian supporters.

Zero tolerance is the watchword of the Victoria State police, whose numbers attending the tournament have been swelled as have the amount of closed-circuit televisions around the court.

It's going to be a far cry from Wimbledon's verdant lawns and hush-hush reverence.

On the court front, Scotland sensation Andrew Murray is almost back to his best after his 2007 was wrecked by a wrist injury. But, pur-lease, for the sake of the youngster's sanity, let's not pump him up too much. Back in the world's top ten rankings, Murray is inching closer to greater glories, but do not forget that world number one and two Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are so far ahead of the field.

With so much acrimony going on in Australia, maybe Sam Allardyce has found his rightful choice of vacation destination in the wake of his exit from St James' Park as the eighth Newcastle United boss in just over a decade. At least he will be spared the wrath of fans who somehow believe they are a big club. That's no domestic trophy for more than 50 years, isn't it?

Also, I bet no-one has given a thought for the biggest loser in all this Toon Army madness. The shop where big Sam bought his chewing-gum is surely now facing closure.