I am sitting here wearing a Dutch style hat with yellow knitted plaits dangling from each side while Mr Brain, stifling in a red and white striped scarf and bobble hat, contemplates his incomprehensible wall chart and stickers which is suitable for a 5 year old and therefore too complex for us.

We have bought a whistle, a crate of beer (French, there are limits) and a ton of pasties and are practising swaying and raucous chanting. We have pre-prepared insults for referees.

In short we are ready for the World Cup. It is hard to predict who will win in the competition between Big Brother and The Football. In both we can look forward to childish tantrums, grown men spitting everywhere, drunken brawling, screaming and kissing, the occasional own goal and so-called pundits talking nonsense.

Now I am not one to perpetuate the battle between women and men. I hate Loose Women and any attitude that denigrates men and treats them as objects of derision . However nothing highlights the gender difference more than the frequently over-heard conversation between couples at this time.

She asks, clearly not caring, 'What does it mean?' He, all keen and Roy Keane-ish, 'It means if England beat Southern Togoland and draw against Egypt and get to the semis that...'

Already her eyes have glazed over as she thinks of the television schedules and how not to miss the soaps and, more practically, of what she might just get away with while his mind is on higher matters, like the impossibility of England beating the Germans at penalties.

We are newly returned from a football watching training session in Portsmouth where we stayed in a footballer's apartment. I had hoped to be able to mock it but, disappointingly for a cynic, it was fabby and if I could turn back the clock and change my nature I might too be hanging out at seedy clubs looking for a footballer. Even now I am fully qualified for the England squad.

I ripped my Achilles ten years ago (Beckham), I have a dodgy knee (Ferdinand), bunions (Victoria), poor eyesight (Green), and have recent experience of penthouses and mirrored furniture (any WAG). I can reasonably expect a call at any minute from Fabio.

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