Mark Mason

Sometimes the obvious answer is the right one. And so it is with Lord’s versus the Oval. There’s a certain type of cricket fan who likes to point out that they prefer the south London ground, implying that Lord’s is just too famous, too touristy, not ‘real’ enough. If you’re interested in the actual play, goes the theory, if you’re properly gripped by how much turn the left-arm spinner will get in the second innings, then the Oval’s the place for you. Leave that poncey museum in NW8 to the arrivistes, the sort who can recite Blowers’s one-man show word-for-word but haven’t got a clue how Derbyshire’s seconds did last week.  The Ovaltinies are wrong, but for the opposite reason to the one they think.

I once made a BBC radio feature calling for cricket to be banned. It was in response to the death of a boxer, who had sustained fatal injuries during a fight. There were the usual calls for the sport to be outlawed, so I pointed out that, as cricket killed more people than boxing, surely it too should be forbidden. Auberon Waugh played along, saying how beastly he’d found cricket at school, what with the viciously hard ball coming towards you at high speed and you being expected to catch it. Danny Baker cited the same reasons for his dislike of the sport.

If you tweeted about a particular snooker referee being the ex-boyfriend of one of the women in The Human League, and a friend of yours replied with ‘Don’t cue want me baby?’, how would you react? Would you groan, sneer and dismiss the pun as the lowest form of wit? Or would you – like me – laugh out loud and feel a surge of joy at the beauty of the wordplay? If the latter, come and stand with me in defence of puns. Not in a ‘guilty pleasure’ way, either, but as a proud statement that puns are wonderful and important. I hate the snobbery that surrounds puns, the way they’re seen as second-rate language. A good pun – be it a joke, a newspaper headline or simply thrown into conversation – is everything language should be about.

Guinness Zero reminds me of the judge. I heard about him years ago. He was driving home from the golf club, seven G&Ts to the good. Or rather – he realised as he saw the flashing blue lights in his rear-view mirror – to the bad. This is it, he thought in horror, end of career. But he went through the motions, blowing into the breathalyser and, as he waited for the result, miserably contemplating how he was going to break the news to his wife. ‘Well, sir,’ said the policeman after a moment, ‘that all appears to be fine. Have a pleasant evening.’ Dumbstruck, the judge turned his car straight round and drove back to the golf club.

The Roman god Janus is about to play his annual trick on us. 31 December, the last day of the year, will be followed by 1 January, the first day of the year. We’ve ended up right back where we started. Frustrating, but at the same time reassuring. Janus, after whom the new month is named, was always pictured with two faces, one looking forward, the other back. He is the god of both beginnings and endings. The notion of returning to 1 January has always bothered me slightly, as though all that effort last year was for naught. Indeed the fact that each day of the year is a ‘copy’ of all the equivalent days in previous years seems troublesome too.

Whenever I hear the phrase ‘holiday of a lifetime’, I cringe. Same with ‘dream job’. You know they’re both going to disappoint. How can they not? Expectations have been allowed to build and build, way beyond the ability of reality to deliver. And even if your new job does make you happy for a while, it’ll soon go wrong. The job will change, or you will change, or both, and returns will diminish. No, forget the big stuff – you need to find your joy in little things. One of mine is letting the steering wheel slide through my hands. Every time I straighten out from a corner, and catch the wheel at just the right moment as it spins back round, I make a point of enjoying the moment. OK, it’s not a massive thrill – but that’s the point.

The Ashes start this week. If, as an England supporter, you were given the following two choices, which would you pick? First: England win the series 5-0. Second: the series ebbs and flows, the teams arrive in Sydney locked at 2-2, the match goes down to the final hour of the final day, and England lose. If you went for the second option, you’re my kind of fan. I’ve always preferred to see my team (or player) lose narrowly than win easily. Sport is there to entertain us. This is the supporter equivalent of ‘It’s not the winning, it’s the taking part that counts’. As a fan, you get excited by the process rather than the result. Nowhere is this truer than in Test cricket.

There’s a certain sort of chap who, when he hears you mention football, gets all earnest and starts talking about flat back fours. You try to stop him, attempting to steer the conversation away from tedious tactics and back on to the important stuff, such as the fact that there’s only one team in the top four English divisions whose name, when spelled in capital letters, contains no curves. He’ll look confused, disorientated, maybe even a little bit angry. Either he’ll persist with his talk of formations, or walk away completely. The correct reaction, of course, is to say: ‘Really? That’s brilliant. Let me try to work it out.’ This is when you know you’ve found a kindred spirit: an unmanly man.

‘Please call me Mark,’ I’ve always said to the teachers at my son’s school. ‘If you call me “Mr Mason” it makes me feel 85 – and if I call you “Mrs Smith” it makes me feel seven.’ I know their first names, and always use them, in emails, phone calls and in person. A few return the compliment, but most keep it formal. It feels wrong, putting distance between us when we’re having a conversation, often an in-depth and important one, about my only child. The best teachers and staff have taught me fascinating things about how to deal with Barney. I’ve only been a parent once; they’ve encountered thousands of kids. It was the same at his primary school, starting with Sonja, when I was a volunteer helping with the class’s reading.