Six Nations and watching sport

Yesterday afternoon I had a nice peaceful time sitting and watching the rugby. For those of you not sportingly minded in any way, it was England /Wales and a traditional grudge match. And it was heightened this year by the fact that neither side has lost a match in the series yet, and so probably someone was going to come away gravely disappointed.

Seeing as I’m someone not usually remotely interested in sport, it’s surprising that not only do I enjoy watching rugby, but I actually understand it too. I could possibly put my interest down to the very shallow reason that in rugby you do regularly get a good eyeful of lovely, muscley, masculine thighs when they go into a scrum, but that doesn’t explain my enhanced understanding of the rules. I’ve never even had a boyfriend in my entire life that played it, so I have no idea why.

This match in particular also had a rather gorgeous Kiwi referee who it must be said had impossibly good looks and was wearing a very fetching blue outfit. So yet another reason to sit in front of the telly for one hour forty minutes with only a short break for a cuppa at half time.

The Six Nations is one of the few sporting events most of us here will sit down and watch together. Whilst I’ll watch winter sports until the cows come home, and will watch athletics in the summer occasionally if I have nothing better to do, that’s about it. The Hubby and his boys are footie mad and will watch Chelsea, Arsenal or England ad infinitum. The Ashes for the Cricket, golf, any other team sport are all grist to their mill – bores me rigid! Particularly golf, which is like watching paint dry with the occasional panic when a fly gets stuck to it. What’s the point? I must say I agree with Oscar Wilde (at least I think it was him) in saying that golf is a good walk spoiled. (If it wasn’t him, and you know who it was, do let me know!)

I’m not even particularly interested in the tennis at Wimbledon any more and Andy Murray certainly isn’t my idea of a national hero, miserable Scots git!. What is the point is being talented and rich if you have no personality and no charm? All the hysteria about trying to get into Wimbledon and sitting on ‘Murray Mount’ (previously ‘Henman Hill’) to cheer him on leaves me cold.

The Olympics is also of very little interest to me this year. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fantastic thing to have in London and if we get it right, it will be marvellous positive publicity for good old Blighty, but personally I’d quite like to go abroad for the whole three weeks and just let them get on with it. It will dominate the telly, make getting to work a nightmare and fill London with lost foreigners. I have no interest whatsoever in trying to get tickets for anything, and it is quite beyond me why anyone would want to queue up for hours to get into a venue and sit on uncomfortable seats with nothing to eat or drink and not enough toilets to watch a race which might last as little as ten seconds. I know its supposed to be all about the experience, but wouldn’t that be more comfortable in your own easy chair with a cup of tea and packet of chocolate hobnobs which haven’t cost the earth because you’ve had to buy them there because they won’t let you take your own food and drink in?

Of course we’re all different, so if you’ve got tickets good luck to you and I hope you enjoy it. When it’s raining, your seat has a puddle on it and there is a queue 45 minutes long for the loo, think of me in my nice warm house with my hot cup of tea. I’ll be thinking of you!

Too much technology

Clearly, lots of people have been given gadgets for Christmas.

Today was the first real day back at work for lots of people. The trains were pretty empty last week, but crammed this morning. I have never seen so many people with i-pads, Kindles and new phones (trying to work out how they work).

I have to confess to being a bit of a philistine about stuff like this. That is despite managing the IT team at work (embarrassingly, I got a new work mobile phone and laptop last week and I had to ask one of my techies how to turn them on. My street cred has taken a considerable tumble!) and having quite a bit of technology at home.

I love the feel of a new book, and the smell of fresh paper knowing you are the first one to turn the pages is a constant pleasure. We have so many books in our house, it's like a library. Until very recently when its battery packed up, I had an ancient but perfectly servicable Nokia as my mobile. Virtually all it did was make phone calls and send texts. It could take a photo of grainy quality in an emergency (such as a prang in the motor) but otherwise I prefer a separate camera with a nice clunky shutter (although I must say digital is a great advance over film, particularly when you are a crap photographer like me. Did you hear Kodak has filed for receivership?). I do have a lovely high spec light weight laptop, but only because I take it to Greece with me to write my panto scripts and watch a DVD on the plane.

In the very near future, technology is going to take over the world and if you ask me, that's not a good thing. It is a constant battle at work to get staff that sit 20 yards from each other to get up off their arses and SPEAK to each other rather than play e-mail tennis. E-mail is so often misinterpreted; many's the time I have been caught out by sending an unwise e-mail or ill thought through phrase which has caused upset or offence.

Much to my regret, my children and step children entertain themselves almost solely through electronic devices - the TV, games consoles, their phones and the computer. I don't mean they're couch potatoes - they do go to the gym and play sports - but they don't read, they don't want to go for walks and the thought of playing an old fashioned game fills them with horror. These days we have lost the art of talking to each other. I make myself very unpopular at family do's if we host them by banning telly, because once it is switched on no one talks and there is no interaction. We might as well all be in different houses. So it gets switched off, people talk and ultimately the day is much more enjoyable. They all have DVD or video recorders or Sky Plus boxes, so if there really is something they don't want to miss they can watch it later.

One of the greatest pleasures of going on holiday for me is no telly and no technology demanding our attention. Even the phone pisses me off sometimes - if someone walked into a room and interrupted your conversation you'd think 'How rude!', but if the phone rings we stop what we are doing and answer it. It's the same thing! When it's been very busy, we have nights in for two - we unplug the phones, turn off the mobiles, switch off the telly and ignore the doorbell. It's amazing how restful that is - try it!

I'd like to experiment with a week with no gadgets and see how we get on. Perhaps a week long power cut would do it and then we couldn't use them! I bet we'd all come out of it less stressed and happier people!