A Confession

OK, I don't really hate football.  The fact is I mean to watch the Brazil match tonight to see if I can spot whatever it is that makes the Brazilians special.

And I enjoyed the Panorama programme on Sunday that exposed the dead-eyed men at the top of FIFA who exist to do one another little favours. I got quite indignant at the way the beautiful game has been uglified.

No, what I really hate is the cultural dragooning. Have you noticed, for example, how every man who appears in a TV ad is presented as football crazy? That  irks me. The way football is being pushed, pushed, pushed at us makes me want to shout back.

But maybe it's more truly subversive of the pumped-up, marketing-driven hysteria to confess, as I do now, to a mild interest.