Off, then, to Stoke yet again. The car doesn't know to drive itself there. That's because cars aren't sentient beings. I don't mind, but I know it's going to be one of those days from the moment I hoot (and needless to say I am not one of life's hooters) a woman before I've reached the M25 as she pulls out in front of me without looking. Needless to say, she has a SatNav.
Since there won't be much to talk about at Stoke, let's talk about SatNav shall we? More than the rise of Simon Cowell, more than the shrinking of newspapers, more than men wearing gloves, more even than N-Dubz, SatNav is the ultimate example of the pampered moronification of Britain.
Designed for mentally flabby people, too stupid and/or too lazy to use the words "satellite" and "navigation" in full, it atrophies that part of the brain which decides how to get from A to B, one of the most natural human attributes. It is as if ,like the appendix, evolution has abolished the need for map-reading. This means - and I see them every day - those whose stupidity baffles yet intrigues me, using SatNav on motorways, a notoriously one-way transport system. My solution if you're going to, say, Chesterfield would be to drive along the M1, look carefully at the signs and leave the motorway at the sign which says "Chesterfield".
It takes away all personal responsibility (hence why SatNav will lead to murder and societal breakdown) and if there's a traffic jam, you are, of course, buggered. Meanwhile, the tracking knowledge that takes you around the backroads slowly becomes lost to civilisation and we're all doomed. And should I mention here the idea of having options at every motorway junction should the traffic be too awful? Or, since we're not fearing a Nazi invasion and roadsigns remain, looking at them?
And now the new-fangled internet has been invented, if, perhaps, you're a criminal looking for a house to burgle in a strange town you don't even have to ask for directions since the World Wide Web does very detailed maps. So, in short, SatNav is the most pointless invention since the Buttoneer. You do remember the Buttoneer don't you.
Anyway, Stoke. The hackbox is full of people I know and like so it's time for a cackle and a commiserate, but the hackfood has gone off the boil (Ha! Do you see what I've done there?) and the lasagne's claggy, the garlic bread more garlic-laden than a garlic-farm and because we're in Stoke it's really, really cold. To think I almost spurned my attractive woolly hat.
Worse still, the match is a shocking shocker. Aston Villa play two wingers, plus Petrov and Milner in midfield and they still look only to defend, while Stoke are at their most one-dimensional. Result, no goals; no controversy for Tony Pulis to sidestep and Martin O'Neill as guarded as his defence afterwards.
I take the straight road home. I could, of course, have taken the winding one had I wished.


Playlist
Chris Rea: I Can Hear Your Heartbeat
I suspect history will not be kind to Chris Rea, but history is wrong and much as I detest pop stars wittering on about being misunderstood, for him I'll make an exception, simply because he is grossly misunderstood and he's right to witter. He's as uncompromising as they come and this is a beauty. The 1983 version from Water Sign - unusually poppy for him, but there's no sin in that - rather than the 1988 re-record is the one.