I should confess now, I used to be one of those atrocious ladette types. You know, one of those ones that the Daily Mail sermonises on and which always seem to be accompanied by a picture of Sara Cox and Zoe Ball innocently enjoying a few beveridges with gobs open and legs akimbo. Not that I think this is a bad thing but I wouldn't want you to tell my sprogs, I'm supposed to be an adult now, you know. As any self respecting ladette knows, an essential part of the experience is pretending to like football and so, appropriately, I used to attend home football matches (oh alright, if you must know, it was Arsenal , I can hear the groans from here). This education, (yes, I even took the trouble to learn the offside rule, a feat that even some linesmen can't manage) has come in handy over the years, my first husband was an arsenal fan, so's the current holder of the hubby title. Even the first man I fell head over heels in love with (earning the priviledge of deflowering me to the soundtrack of the Cure's Disintegration) was an Arsenal fan and funnily enough quite a lot of my subsequent boyfriends were. As you can imagine, this has left me open to some ridicule. A friend of mine (rather uncharitably) used to wonder aloud, whether I had a billboard at Highbury, (well he is a Leyton Orient supporter, they probably allow that sort of thing at Brisbane Road). But lately football lost some of its allure for me, most games just don't seem very entertaining and while I found the "Special One" and his grey dreamcoat amusing for the first season, it's rather old hat now. As is his lack of grace, very appealling in a man, being a bad loser (anyone watching the Chelsea v W Brom match will know what I'm getting at here). Add that to the fact that you are never more than three feet from someone that Rio Ferdinard has tried to lure into his deluxe kingsize and, well need I say more?
In addition to all this, I'm a cricket widow. Every summer weekend, me and the sprogs are left to fend for ourselves whilst hubs pretends he's Beefy Botham (the similarity is alarming and I'm not talking about his skills with the bat or ball). So in an effort to honour my vows of betrothal, I've spent 2 years swotting up on googlies and the meaning of LBW (he'd better not trade me in for an airline stewardess after all this). Actually, I quite enjoy watching the cricket but not half as much as I enjoy Rugby Union. But that's a story for the future and part 2 of this epic, my friend. Right now I need (and I really do) to catch up on some beauty sleep, before hubs decides he wants to emulate Beefy in ways that don't involve whites and little red balls.