What Happens If I Press That?

Johnny P boggles warily at the modern age

Johnny Pundit: getting a grip

Ceefax: worth staying in for

Missus P: Must stay at least 100 miles away from

Funny old thing, Football. For instance, football scores. They're a bit like breasts. Used to be something you searched for high and low. Now, they're everywhere. But we still can't get enough of 'em.

Droopy pink arrows

Talking of breasts, recently Missus Pundit and I went caravanning in Wales. Not that I need to trouble the passing reader with Missus P's breasts; they're very useful as droopy pink arrows indicating the whereabouts of Australia, but that's about it. Anyhoo, there we were up some mountain in the middle of nowhere, rain crashing down on our heads like away fans' abuse and surrounded by place names the locals were daring us to pronounce. Never far from glamour's lure, Missus Pundit naturally wondered how Grimsby Town were getting on. Being not only a silver surfer but also a wrinkly WAPPER, I watched agog as she organised for the score to be 'texted' to her.

What's on Ceefax tonight, dear?

It wasn't like that in my day. If you were lucky, you might catch a younger, but still balding, Fothergill on the Light Programme reading out the scores but otherwise you had to wait for tomorrow's paper — if you could still read it after you'd cleared the fish and chips out of the way. Five years ago I knew people who would sit and watch Ceefax on Saturday afternoons, waiting for the scores to change. Now they can sit and watch their internets. Incredible.

Up as well as down

Still, the problem with technology is it's only as good as the person using it. Missus P was labouring under the belief that Grimsby had won 2-1. When we got back two days later we found out they'd lost 2-1; she'd been holding her 'mobile phone' upside down. It occurred to me later that perhaps my wife's droopy pink arrows were her unwitting prediction of Grimsby's performance this season; but it seemed tactless to ask.



Keep in touch,

Johnny Pundit