The way football is televised over here, in Los Angeles, is usually several hours after the event. I’ve accepted it now. Like many other previously bizarre aspects of their culture, I no longer gawp or even remark I simply look out the window and get on with my life. Everything is too far apart and crossing the road is illegal. Shops and cafes don’t let you use their toilets. In fact nothing that doesn’t directly hoover up money from your pants (trousers) is allowed to flourish.

If I wee’d gold coins Starbucks would let me use their bathroom (lavvy), as it is I spend a lot of my time piddling in the street like a cur. Why, too, are they so euphemistic about bodily function? Restroom? What, for a rest? A rest where faeces emerge from your anus? That’s no kind of respite from the trials of the day. Having said that I’ve been utterly seduced by all the rhubarb and glamour to the point that when I hear "West Ham lost 4-0 again" I allow the shame to drizzle past and pop out and buy myself a new bikini. It’s my optimism that prevents me from watching a game which I know the Irons have squandered; in spite of irrefutable proof that the result has been decided I sit pointlessly willing alternative results with my brain.

It’s stupid enough doing that at a live game, like trying to will Frank Lampard into being sent off or Jermain Defoe into missing a penalty - both of which have happened this season, but surely (surely?) that’s not as a result of my mental dexterity and villainous telepathy? I’m pretty sure that once, on acid, I was able to make a weather girl stutter just by staring at her on GMTV thinking "Stutter, stutter!" but my testimony is perhaps marred by the LSD.

A consequence of my reluctance to torture myself with West Ham’s inefficiency and my cynicism has been that I’ve not seen West Ham play for ages, they seem only capable of humiliating defeats at present and if I know they’ve lost 4-0 to Spurs I don’t see why I should subject myself to 90 minutes of doomed cock-eyed optimism.

Julian Dicks, perhaps the most popular left-back in human history (Roberto Carlos? Kenny Sansom?) has berated West Ham for "not trying" in recent games, as well he might, for when he played for West Ham it were as if what were at stake was not the abstract idea of three points but the safety of his own sex organs - which were never in jeopardy, it would be a foolhardy pervert who targeted the genitalia of the terminator, I imagine his sperm was a caustic liqueur that would devour the deviant’s hand.

Dicks spared Alan Curbishley in his venomous ejaculation saying he wasn’t to blame. Curbishley was also offered support from the board and it comes to something when a vote of confidence is universally accepted as a tacit admission that the manager’s days are numbered.

Where else would such loopy double-speak be de rigueur? Maybe in mob culture where the thoughtful and delicious delivery of a bit of fish means one of your mates has been murdered. I suppose at least you’ve got the fish to cheer you up afterwards - a bit of salmon would take the sting out of all but the most sudden bereavement.

A quick glance in the direction of St James’ Park puts Curbishley’s recent achievements in perspective. Dear Kevin Keegan seems to be meticulously nurturing a somehow unforeseen travesty for the people of Newcastle who, with the benefit of hindsight and a near certain awareness of the result, appointed a man for whom optimism is the sole qualification.

I expect members of the Toon Army would happily re-watch the games that have taken place since Keegan’s appointment, glued to the set, rattle in hand waiting for Bolton Wanderers to capitulate. After last season I suppose mid-table mediocrity is quite an achievement but I miss the adrenaline and adventure, I’d sooner watch last season’s thrilling home defeat to Tottenham than the 4-0 kick in the nuts we got last week because the spirit of the team that game was spellbinding, which I suppose is what Julian Dicks is getting at and why Newcastle are still enchanted by Keegan.