West Ham 0 Arsenal 1

I don't understand football. While I can see what appears to be happening, unless I choose to view it as a sexologist, it makes no sense to me. Nevertheless, I was happy to purchase two second hand tickets for me and Thom to see Arsenal play. He is aware of my indifference to the game but seeing me read the programme, in particular the player profiles, allows him to concentrate on the game and for us to maintain an equilibrium of interest. By half time I had decided the defenders were very likely to have better relations with their mothers than the forwards. I didn't share this with Thom and also failed to mention that after the game I was hoping we'd go to the annual soiree of my friend, Axel Von Rauffenstein. While he may have pulled his name from a hat and taken to implying a place in German aristocracy, he does have an exquisite collection of erotica.

After the match, we took the tube to Chelsea and I explained to Thom that Axel was an old friend. In fact, while he is the curious result of a violent childhood, he's also an astonishing bore. On the few occasions we have met he notes my occupation and never fails to press upon me the tragic case of his demented niece, now of Berlin. Axel has an impressive, almost transcendent homosexuality, and he courts my every word as if his niece, by osmosis, were being cured with every syllable. Thom and I edged around the drawing room, avoiding our host. I saw two very thin woman, twined round a single wine glass, who threw artful glares at me for bringing a child to such an event. Indeed, I felt the same. My palms began to sweat with shame. And yet, as ever, with a momentary glance at me, Thom saved us both. We were standing in front of an absurd but joyous lithograph by Peter Fendi. A man stood with his mad phallus between two women and Thom, bless his soul, giggled. Perhaps it was the cartoon rendering, but I laughed, too, and before long we were oblivious to everyone in the room. Man and boy, laughing at a picture on a wall.