WITH benefit of hindsight, that exact science, the amber light started flashing a few months ago when I started reading newspapers from the front, breaking the habit of a lifetime.
It is possible, if unlikely, that when I first struggled with a newspaper – short arms and broadsheet combine uneasily, particularly when dressing for school and eating breakfast – that I read it from front page onwards.
If I did, it didn't last l
ong. Newspapers were thinner then and sports coverage thinner still, but what sport there was I absorbed. If only, as parents and teachers were wont to remark in tones ranging from exasperation to frothing incoherence, I could or would absorb useful information as readily.
When older I might have pointed out that Roy Thomson, the Canadian who built a newspaper empire in Britain when Rupert Murdoch was barely out of short trousers, trained his laser-like business brain on baseball statistics.
I didn't know that when I was in short trousers myself, but what the young Roy was to baseball statistics I was to cricket scores, bringing the intensity Watson and Crick brought to solving the DNA double helix to decimal points of batting and bowling averages.
And that was secondary to my interest in football. Habits learned in childhood are hard to break, and starting at the back page was one I never lost. Much might happen in the real world, but from the days of Jackie Milburn, Bobby Evans and Duncan Edwards to David Beckham, Michael Owen and Craig Gordon, what was happening in football came first.
Sad, I know, but there it is. Or was, because a few months ago I began to read newspaper front pages before flipping to the back. Then I realised I was reading the front page and moving on in sequence, stopping to read articles of immediate interest, mentally noting those to come back to, having a brief rant here, a nod of appreciation there, before reaching the sports section.
There were other changes. I would start to watch Match Of The Day then switch off and return to a book. So far this new season I haven't switched it on and Liz wanted to phone the doctor. Nor have I watched any of the live matches shown, even on terrestrial television, most nights of the week. I can no longer reel off team sheets and league tables.
Interest in cricket has suffered in the same way. Instead of checking Teletext or the web for football and cricket scores, I check for the FTSE index, weather and headline news. Instead of checking fixtures I've been studying concert dates.
Instead of thinking "Manchester United v Chelsea, good one, note the date," I'm thinking "Sibelius's third, good one, see if we can get tickets for that," or "Herbie Hancock? Yes."
Liz, who in self defence gained a working knowledge of the offside rule, LBW law and Sir Alex Ferguson's sportsmanlike nature in defeat, has given these male menopause indicators a cautious welcome.
But at the first hint of a 1,000cc motorbike in the drive I'm told I'll be back on the tablets.
The full article contains 532 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
