DEAR Doctor,I am writing to you because I desperately need some advice about a recurring ailment from which I suffer. Maybe suffer isn't quite the right word, but this ailment certainly comes up regularly, usually once every four years when it persists for around a month or so. I call it World Cup Indifference, or WCI, and in the past few weeks I have already begun to feel the first familiar symptoms.
It may help if I explain these to you. Among the most obvious ones that I always experience are a persistent lack of interest in all talk about soccer; this, by the way, is a constant complaint but one I have learnt to live with and try not to make any fuss about. Then there is an unwillingness to paint my face in the colours of our national flag, something which seems enormously popular among the majority of the population. I cannot bring myself to don a tall bright emerald hat, to carry a giant rubber hammer or to wrap the Tricolour around my shoulders. Nor do I especially want to dress myself in jerseys manufactured from a particularly nasty blend of sweat-inducing synthetic fibres and dyed a hitherto-unknown shade of green. Oh, and by the way, even if I were to wear such a garment, at no time would I ever want to run around with it pulled over my head, exposing my stomach and wildly waving my arms.
"Olé, olé, olé" remains a tuneless refrain to my ears, despite the widespread favour this ditty seems to enjoy. In fact, all forms of communal chanting leave me cold. Furthermore, to my mind, Mexican waving ought to have remained in Mexico. Roaring at television sets inside crowded pubs also holds little appeal for me.
One of the biggest drawbacks to my unhappy condition is that I find it exceedingly difficult to talk about the subject. This is because, just when I start to feel the onset of WCI, everyone else suddenly wants to talk only about sport. What can I do? The condition of Roy Keane's ligaments holds no interest for me, Mick Mcarthy's selection is equally beyond my conversational abilities and I'm not even sure who Jason McAteer actually is (or, indeed, whether I have spelt his name correctly. You have - Ed). Imagine my sense of awful isolation when I just cannot comment on the merits of assorted players, referees, commentators, pundits, and the entire population of the country, since they all seem to have opinions on soccer.
And that's really my problem; that WCI is just part of a much larger condition with which I am afflicted. For example, in many respects its symptoms are strikingly similar to those of another virus which I also catch every few years. This second illness I call Olympics Boredom, or OB. Earlier this year, a severe dose unexpectedly hit me when a man with a funny name and only the most tangential connection with Ireland failed to win a medal for this country while sliding down a snow-covered mountain at great speed on a tea tray.
Even more bizarrely, despite his rather grandious connections, the tea tray in question wasn't even part of the family silver. While all around me struggled to pronounce his name correctly, I attempted to appear even moderately interested, but failed: OB struck in the cruellest way imaginable. Others could cheerily discourse on the velocity potential of different tea trays according to the gradient of the slope and the condition of the snow covering it. I, on the other hand, continued to hold the conviction that trays were not invented so that grown men with peerages could slither around on them - for heaven's sake, how are any of us supposed to carry around our cups and saucers?
Now that I have unburdened myself of this much, doctor, I hope you won't mind if a few more of my ailments can be considered. Of late, there's hardly a month goes by when I don't feel myself hit by yet another variant of WCI. Every spring, for example, the word Cheltenham induces the most terrible feeling of indifference in me. No matter how great the effort on my part, I just cannot work up even the most marginal interest in how certain horses are going to perform. The only way I can stifle my yawns whenever the topic of racing comes up is to consider why any man should be called Ruby.
Then there is another massive annual outbreak of indifference on my part induced by rugby and the Six Nations Cup, even while all around me worry about the physical condition of someone called Peter Clohessy. I'm sure that despite demonstrating deplorable taste in his choice of knitwear Padraig Harrington is a perfectly charming man, but no matter how hard I try, I am incapable of summoning up so much as a smidgeon of interest in whether he makes another couple of million euro while ambling around a sequence of immaculately manicured lawns.
Likewise Ken Doherty's efforts to enrich himself further at the billiards table. And I never felt that Eddie Jordan, even when he was supposed to be acting as a roving ambassador for Ireland, represented my interests; again, perhaps his taste in clothing may have had something to do with this, Mr Jordan appearing incapable of wearing anything unadorned with an abundance of corporate logos. As for the GAA - well, just the consideration of its entire range of pursuits causes a chronic outbreak of indifference in me.
I hope you now have a better understanding of my condition, dear doctor, as I am very fearful of what lies ahead. Instinctively, I feel that however bad the World Cup Indifference I have experienced in previous years, it will be nothing to this latest dose. And the worst thing is that I often imagine no one else understands my state. Can you imagine what it is like to see more and more media coverage devoted to a subject in which one has absolutely no interest? Do you know what it is like to hear endless programmes on radio and television in which broadcasters persistently refer to "everyone" being hooked by the topic of soccer/ golf / rugby / hurling / lacrosse / billiards / tea tray racing?
Are you able to help doctor? Or should I simply resign myself to being overwhelmed by another serious attack of total indifference?