See telly? See me seeing telly? Ah luv it. Last month I thought I was watching Scottish football until I realised I was just staring at my blank bedroom wall. Only took me three hours to notice.
This week I was in my element. And let me tell you it's not easy climbing into a kettle. Not with my back. Anyway.
Spent most of the weekend watching top-class sport, all of it on council telly. I was stretched out on the couch like a walrus on a beach. It was one of those days when one curses God for giving one only one set of eyes but two legs, both of which one does not intend to use for the forseeable future.
There was cricket on Channel 5 with a West Indian hitting the ball so hard one thought it had just asked him to partake in a civil partnership. There was Ole v Nole with Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic swinging in the Paris rain and there was a run of fitba' matches that was as intriguing as the last episode of a Scandinavian police thriller.
There was more than a pang of regret at not being in Paris. Am usually there for the Roland Gallus stuff but this year the office pedalo had been booked and I was stranded in the sports editor's interrogation cell instead. But my pain was lessened by watching large chunks of the tournament on ITV. It was also worth listening to as Jim Courier was doing the analysis.
Now some of the specialist analysts are as informative as a village idiot on Valium. They state the bleedin' obvious in deliberate tones. But Jim was different. He dissected the tactics, he talked intelligently about the psychological aspects of the competitors. He gave his opinion. No ducking, no diving. It was as easy to listen to him as it was hard to disagree with him.
The experience of watching the best players in the world at the top of their game was enhanced by Jim's expertise. At one point – and it was only the once – he said something obvious. ''I will mute myself,'' he immediately added.
It was a prime example of one of my father's greatest pieces of advice. He said that it was better to keep silent and let people think you are a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt. Strangely, he repeats this regularly in my presence, usually interrupting me mid-sentence.
But Jim, the winner of four grand slam finals, two of them at Roland Garros, knows when to talk and when to keep it shut. His "mute" advice should be followed, though, by the mass of fitba' pundits on the telly.
If one more expert talks me through a slo-mo incident by stating precisely what is appearing on the screen, I swear I will move off the couch. Or I might just swear. It is not, dear fitba' analysts, deeply insightful to watch a big centre- forward head the ball over the bar and then hear a guy on a couple of grand to commentate say: "The big centre-forward has just headed that ball over the bar. He will be disappointed with that." Not half as much as the viewers are.
Mercifully, the pictures are great and the fitba' is entertaining. Hope also rises on the back of some promising performances by some of the pundits. Roberto Martinez, the Motherwell boy who manages Wigan, is slightly swotty with his homework laid out in front of him.
Lee Dixon, who spent his professional life looking across to Tony Adams and putting his hand in the air like an incontinent schoolboy, is more than decent. Like all footballers who worked on his game, he has both the knowledge and the willingness to convey it.
The rest, though, as are as lazy as me with remote in mitt and my back on the couch. There is one, though, who keeps us all in a state of alert normally reserved for Chernobyl just after the alarm went off.
Roy Maurice Keane sits on the chair facing Adrian Chiles. It is like watching Ronnie Kray confronting Alan Carr. Keane is as threatening as a shark who has just decided that the Weightwatchers diet is too restrictive and fancies a treat. Yet he has kept his cool, just.
As Roy was pontificating in an outside studio Warsaw the other night, there were about 200 riot police milling in the background. Maybe they expect him to lose it. Now that would be great TV.
