I decided to watch the England match at the gym. Then I could be sweating and struggling along with our boys and also justify watching TV for an hour. I wasn't there for the start of the game and when I arrived we were already 1-0 up. It was looking good. There was about 10 minutes of the first half left so I decided I would go on the running machine for that and then watch the end of Deal, No Deal and wasn't allowed to stop running until the final credits had ended. This meant I got a brisk 20 minute run. It's a little bit dangerous being on a running machine whilst watching football because when something exciting happens you either leap a bit or involuntarily try and join in the action by doing a shadow kick. But we got through to half time with our lead in tact and to the end of DOND with a gamble ending in a woman who believe in fate getting £100 after having turned down £20,000.
I decided I would go on the exercise bike for half of the second half and then maybe on the ski machine for the rest of it. Being forced to stay to the end of the match meant I was going to get a good long gym session and maybe all sporting fixtures should be watched this way. It might stop our nation on its inevitable slide to obesity. But I hope not. I am looking forward to a future where the starving people of the Third World launch an attack on the grossly overweight people of the West, who are too chubby to defend themselves and consequently get eaten by the invaders.
I am looking forward to that.
After about 20 minutes of cycling I was really tired and England were on top, having missed a couple of great chances to kill the game and guarantee their progress into the Finals. I wanted to stop cycling, but managed to convince myself, like the woman from DOND, that fate existed and that my actions could influence events a thousand miles away and decided that unless I managed to cycle up to the thirty minute mark (and I had started just before the second half commenced) then Russia would score. My cycling legs had the power to save England. I would be a hero and probably on the back pages of every paper in the country. So I kept my little legs peddling away.
My theory took a somewhat downward plunge when Russia got a penalty about half way through that extra ten minutes, but we were still drawing and I figured that I just hadn't believed enough, so if I kept cycling we would get back in the lead. Just as the end of the 30 minute period arrived though Russia scored again. Something had gone wrong with my scientific theory, but I kept my faith. If people can believe in a old book and an ark full of animals and not get ridiculed, then I could believe in the power of the exercise bike. The bike was just testing my faith in it by making things deliberately go wrong and I had to prove my worthiness by continuing.
The ski machines were also a bit too close to the TVs and the only ones I would have been able to see the game from were taken. So I decided to press on for another ten minutes at least and see if my cycling legs could save the game, where England's footballing legs seemed unable to do so.
I was really getting properly tired, but as much as anything knew that if I stopped and went to get changed I would miss the denouement of this fascinating tussle and also maybe anger the exercise bike, so on I pushed. Once I got to 40 minutes, with only about 7 minutes of regular time left I decided I might as well see the game through, hoping the bike would reward me for my diligence, but alas it was not to be. I ended up cycling for 51 minutes, and although it did not cause us to win the game (I must not have believed enough) it did mean I had done a powerful amount of exercise, hopefully meaning when the horde of weak famine victims come spilling over our borders, unlike my compatriots I will be able to run away and not get gobbled up. So some good came from the crushing disappointment. Plus it will be more disappointing for people who really like sport and most of them are idiots, so that's good too. I only quite like sport and am thus only a bit of an idiot.
Still there's still a chance we can get through. But only if everyone in the country watches the second half of the Russia- Israel game whilst cycling on an exercise bike. Do you love your country or not? It's the new cricket test.
