ONCE upon a time I had a glamorous blonde girlfriend, but only briefly.

She said it was a straight choice. Saturday afternoon shopping in the high street or a pre-season friendly against Walsall. Well, naturally there was no choice even if we did get beaten 3-0 and the blonde departed for pastures new well before half-time.

I relate this tragic little tale to emphasise how much football has been a part of my life. In fact I have missed just four Carlisle home games in 50 years, which suggests either a praiseworthy devotion to my team or a mental issue that should have been addressed by men in white coats long ago.

In those days at least there was a break from football. Sky TV was no more than a twinkle in Rupert Murdoch’s eye. We had from the end of April to the last week in August to spend longing for the new season to begin. A football free zone that made one’s ardour for Carlisle United all the greater.

Now it’s wall to wall. Or plasma screen to plasma screen, from pub to pub. We haven’t even begun the 2010 World Cup and it’s all about 2018 and the somewhat ill-managed bid to bring it to the place David Beckham always fondly calls “our country”, a form of words which presumably covers all politically correct requirements of not offending the Scots, Welsh and Irish, but still doesn’t take account of FA bigwigs who can’t keep their mouths buttoned or their trousers at full mast.

I have grave doubts about the value of these huge sporting occasions. The Olympics in 2012 are likely to set back an already poverty stricken nation the other arm and leg we have not already had stripped off us by the profligacy of the city traders and the banks, not forgetting that chappie who flogged off most of our gold for a knockdown fee.

Greece had the Olympic Games and look what happened to them. Why should attracting the 2018 World Cup be such a wonderful thing? The way things are going we’ll all be living in camping pods and scrabbling around on rubbish tips for our food by then.

I have determined that this summer will be a World Cup free zone. If I want to enjoy live football next season I need a bit of respite.

Several hotels and guesthouses in the Lake District are advertising World Cup special deals. Three nights for the price of two; big screens so you don’t miss a kick … Are people really so desperate for a football fix that they arrange their holidays around it?

Some years ago I was in Ireland when the Republic was last in the World Cup finals. I was invited into the home of complete strangers and, boy, do those Irish know how to enjoy their football hospitably. There must have been half the country’s priests squatting on the floor cheering and quaffing their hosts’ booze and food. Now that was a TV footie experience.

But come the World Cup there will be all the false patriotism that brings out the worst in some people. It’s another excuse for a booze up. Sales of flags will boom. Sales of cheap alcohol will go through the supermarkets’ roofs and, if and when England make their exit, there will be the usual recourse to violence and vandalism.

I can’t stand the prospect of all that inane punditry from a procession of former players and managers and the way every Tom, Dick and Harry, who wouldn’t go to the end of the street to watch a proper game, suddenly become experts. Just wake me when it’s over and Carlisle’s fixtures for next season are out.

KEEP THESE TWERPS OUT OF THE PICTURE

WHAT is it with people who can’t resist getting on the box by being irritating?

During the recent election campaign, they have emerged from the woodwork in their droves to stand behind the television reporters waving cretinously to Aunty Madge with one hand while clutching a mobile phone to their ear with the other.

I don’t understand the need for TV to put their reporters in front of these clowns. You can’t concentrate on what they are saying because of the distraction of the foolishly grinning masses. Even Huw Edwards doesn’t deserve this treatment.

Why they persist in reporting live from Westminster I can’t conceive when there is the inevitable discord of protest in the background.

Is there nowhere they can go to present their reports quietly and calmly without the racket which seems to be constantly set up by the great unwashed and those awful strident female voices perpetually shouting their weird mantras.

Even sports events are blighted by crowd scenes where nobody watches the game any more. They pay up to £100 for a ticket to watch the big screens in the hope of spotting themselves and waving furiously at the camera. Either that or they are taking photos with their mobile ‘phones which go up like submarine periscopes every time the action draws near.

We have turned into a nation fixated by TV. I blame flamboyant racing pundit John McCririck who started it by inviting punters to crowd round as he gave his betting reports in the ring. Now everyone wants to get in on the act. I don’t think it’s in any shape or form funny. It’s pathetic and it’s high time the TV companies stopped encouraging brain dead idiots to ruin our viewing …

WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?

IF it wasn’t going badly enough for Labour, they trotted out the likes of Lord Mandelson and Alistair Campbell during their election campaign.

My advice to Labour is simple. Get rid if you have any hopes of winning back the affections of your supporters and the British public at large.

Mandelson and Campbell were rumbled long ago. They epitomise the spin and duplicitous malevolence that has afflicted politics for far too long.

The voting public made it clear this time. They have had enough of the way politics has been run in this country. The flesh-creeping manipulation of Peter Mandelson and the bullying, hectoring of Campbell and other Labour cronies has had its day.

Labour will remain long in the wilderness, no matter who they elect as their new leader, until they shed the image that devious types like this appalling duo project.

PRIVACY'S A THING OF THE PAST

TECHNOLOGY offers us the best and worst of things. The great information highway has proved wonderfully beneficially to many, but lingering fears remain about the way it also erodes what little privacy we have left in these Orwellian times.

Some while ago Google’s Street View cars came round our way, filming streets and houses without any concession to asking permission first.

Anyone in the world can type in a UK address and instantly see a 360-degree picture of the street. Once they accidentally caught a bloke throwing up in the road. Another time they snapped a chap emerging from the local sex shop. There was also an image of a girl who had died since the cameras came calling.

They say there are safeguards. Don’t you believe it. It’s all about gathering every last ounce of data. Local councils, central government and now the Internet want to know everything about you, from the value of your house and your religious beliefs to what you put in your wheelie bin.

Now it turns out Google “inadvertently” collected snippets of people’s on-line activities while roaming our highways and byways. They have been accused of a gross invasion of privacy. Soon the cameras will be appearing at your bedroom window at dead of night. Just wait.