Rooney...

The nomadic life frees up a lot of time because I don’t commute. I don’t go somewhere, then go home; I go somewhere… and then go somewhere else. According to the statistics, I’m gaining three or four hours every day, simply by not watching TV. I’m vaguely aware that celebrities are made to eat grubs in the jungle (why do they do it? Oh, I see…). I know that people get famous - briefly - by being voted the winner of singing contests. I know that people are locked in a house, so they can flirt, bicker and get drunk live on TV. The ghost of Andy Warhol is watching, and saying “I told you so”…

I save more time by taking no interest in Wayne Rooney beating Sir Bobby Charlton’s record of goals for England. It’s such a long process, starting months ago with breathless conjecture, “Will Wayne Rooney break the record?”, then yesterday’s pronouncement that “Wayne Rooney’s broken the record!”, then the reflective aftermath: “Is Wayne Rooney really better than Bobby Charlton?”. There’ll be those who question the validity of comparing sportsmen who played fifty years apart, suggesting that football is very different in 2015 to what it was in 1966 (we won the World Cup then. No-one remembers it now… but we did. We really did!). There’ll be others who say it simply doesn’t matter, in a slightly superior kind of way… and use their time more effectively by visiting branches of McDonald for cups of tea, bacon rolls and free wifi…

Langdale...