It was as if TV schedulers were trying to create division in every household in the country. England's decisive World Cup qualifier was up against the semi-final of the Great British Bake Off. Ten years ago this would have created more tension than it did now. But these days we have the ability to consume TV shows on many different platforms and in our house at least we got round the problem by having the football on the telly on mute and the Great British Bake Off on the iPlayer on the laptop.
Why my wife was so insistent on watching the football, I don't know.
In truth this all suited me fine. I was mildly interested in the football and wanted to know what happened, but wasn't so bothered that I wanted to concentrate on that and nothing else. England will be knocked out of the tournament at some point and you might argue that it might as well be now, to save the players and the fans making all that effort and expense to go to Brazil.
I am also only mildly interested in the Great British Bake Off. I saw Dave Gorman comment that it's a show that his wife watches and that he isn't too bothered about, but every week he gets dragged into it and wants to know the result. I am exactly the same. On every level it should be a programme that I am just not interested in. Even for a man who loves eating sweet things I don't even like eating cakes that much. And even when I find one I like I have no interest in knowing how it was cooked. But as it turned out I was far more interested in Ruby's poor performance with a chopped up Swiss roll, than I was with the form of Danny Welbeck. Also there is no indication that the referee fancies Welbeck and might make a lunge to kiss him at any point, whereas Paul Hollywood is maverick enough to at least imply that that might happen on the cake show. I constructed a fantasy where Hollywood and Ruby had finally got it together the night before the semi and it hadn't gone well and it had thrown her off her game and Hollywood had now lost interest in her so she'd be ejected from the show. I could have attempted something similar with Wayne Rooney and the linesman's mum, but I would know in my heart that nothing Rooney did could have any effect on his psyche. You need to have a soul to be disrupted by inappropriate sex.
I won't give any spoilers for those of you who haven't seen it (but, let's just say you might need your suntan lotion next summer, soccer fans), but the cakes beat the football for my attention. Was the shouting from the next house due to missed shots or disdain with the decisions of Mary Berry. I guess we'll never know.
