Guilty pleasure...

With these wet and cold winter evenings I’ve become a big fan of The Chase as presented by that cheeky chappie Bradley Walsh - actor, comedian, singer, television presenter and former professional footballer. How he finds time to be so multi-talented I’ll never know, but you have to hand it to him - although I’ve no idea what ‘it’ is.

Of course when it comes to general knowledge quiz shows MCW is highly competitive despite her thinking that a herring is a wading bird and that Muffin the Mule once won The Derby. After saying this she usually beats me when we watch The Chase. The problem is that I definitely know all of the answers and am so sure that I seem to get a lot of them wrong. She on the other hand seems to be the best guesser in the world. Either that or she has absorbed pretty much all knowledge known to man through osmosis.

For someone who doesn’t watch documentaries, read books regularly, listen to Radio Four, or has any interest in current affairs or art, she seems to know an awful lot (apart from the bird and 1950's puppetry thing of course). Just where she gets her deep knowledge of sport (including cricket and rowing) is quite beyond me and sometimes I wonder if she doesn’t have direct contact to the internet through an implant in her brain.

Her favourite chaser is ‘The Sinnerman’ whilst mine is relative newcomer ‘The Vixen’. This seems to wind up MCW terribly. I don’t know why, unless it’s the way my eyes light up and the tendency for me to dribble when she walks out to sit in the Chaser’s chair. Once I even let out a subtle and very quiet ‘cor!’ and was so taken aback (scared) by the disgusted look MCW gave me that I had to disguise it as a coughing fit.

I don’t know why MCW dislikes her so much because whenever The Vixen is the Chaser my mind goes blank and I invariably lose the competition between us. It isn’t that I don’t know the answers - of course I know that the capital of Mauritius is Port Louis - but I’m so busy gawping at The Vixen's lusciousness – eyes, lips, hair and other attributes that I often forget to even try to answer and when I do it’s usually a meaningless gibber.

As I’ve explained to MCH it isn’t The Vixen's undoubted cuddliness that keeps me entranced (after all, I’m old enough to be her father - or preferably her non-blood related uncle), but there’s something about that gleam in her eye, the warmth of her smile, and the tinkle of her Northern lilt that totally enchants me and causes my brain to stop.

And with that I guess I should stop before I incriminate myself any more than I already have. Guilty pleasure? Well, as Bradley Walsh’s DS Ronnie Brooks might say: ‘It’s a fair cop.’