Nevertheless this past few months I have taken part in a fantasy online American football league. Now I want to say Simon and Tuathal had to battle hard to get me to join, but I in general have a problem with saying no and Simon also marketed the prospect of the league from his perspective of knowing little and still managing to leave Tuathal and various associates in the dust of his winning streak the previous year. So I joined, my team was selected through a draft, my team name (The Flametown Ashballs) was selected by a girl supping rum one night in Havana Cuba and a whole medly of people were drawn together from various aspects of Tuathals life to create a big competition.

Simon managed the impossible and made me somewhat interested – now don’t get me wrong, I had to be reminded, frequently, to update my team and I’m sure I asked stupid questions but occasionally when I found myself awake at strange hours Id start browsing through the predictions and reading up on the stats and on one occasion looking at highlights. Could I explain the game to you now – god no! – and now with a crushing defeat that has come this past weekend I feel like being the saddest of losers and curling my tail between my legs and sulkily refusing to engage with the rest of the season. You see, I wanted to destroy Simon and his silly Canterbury Ninjas, was this a sign of maturity and gratitude, knowing how Simon has been my Yoda to date – probably not no, but there seemed to be some weird code we had constructed that let me want to take him down to China town. Not that the apprentice had become better than the master – it was purely blind luck, opportunity, Simons advice and my occassional attempts at managing a team that had lead to me doing better than I deserved. Nevertheless I could see the OK magazine cover, that shrine to untalented people deified and believed my moment of glory – beating the guy who had beaten all the others, beating the guys who actually knew what a WR was and filled so many of their hours talking about this stuff – was inevitable. What an epic battle it was – yesterday morning, dawn found us waking to a 20 point gap, Simon in the lead and I with two players still to play. There was a chance. Simon freely admitted to bad luck with player choices, their scores being disappointed. I like Sarah Palin had no idea what was going on but still believed that someone somewhere was gona fight for me.

The ’smack talking’ I am proud of – in one classy moment Simon sent me a clip of American football being played so that I could actually see what the game looked like. I cursed back at him.

This went on for most of a week and culminated with a text message at 5.16 this morning that read as follows:

“Ninja’s emerge victorious. Muhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha (x5 lines)”

I was heartbroken, I had actually spent a few restless hours in the lead up to the text tossing and turning in my bed, knowing there was something wrong with that natural order of events. All the images of Greek tragedy, Simon falling on his own sword, his apprentice turned against him, seeing him as that small little

Love the team tune.