Boys Will Be Boys (Scabby Old Men Will Be Scabby Old Men)

At lunch in the Brady Arts centre today, I joined in superficial chat about England's impending match against Croatia with the lovely cafe owner and an old dude buying coffee. He seemed flabbergasted that I liked football, repeating several times to himself 'a girl that likes football' as though it would help make it real. As I suggested to him it wasn't so rare these days, he told me he'd watched a women's international recently on telly and went on:,

'There'd been a massive collision between two of the players. The physio ran on and pulled out a mirror; I thought it must have been such a bad run-in they were checking to see if the player was still breathing, like. But, no, she'd just smudged a bit of mascara.'

Cue sound of tired drummer falling into his kit. Something tells me this wasn't the first time my companion had told this story, and as I rather too nicely (well, he was an incorrigible old East London codger) gave him a head-shaking grin, he shook his head at me as he took his coffee, saying 'We're men, love, just men. We can't help it.' Hhm. Oh, for a gazelle-calved female England player to be walking past and catch that, give him a swift drop-kick in the groin and say 'I'm just a pretty little girl, love, I can't help it' before sauntering off into the sunshine, doing a few neck stretches for good measure...