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The pros and pros of not going ice skating

BEEN invited to navigate a pop-up public ice rink on thin metal blades? Here’s why it’s always best to point blank refuse:

PRO: Stay warm and dry in your own footwear

Why would you choose to swap your own comfortable, warm footwear for a pair of smelly communal boots with blades on, which you’re required to struggle into surrounded by a melee of shouting parents and their annoying, overexcited children? An experience as disgusting as it is infuriating.

PRO: Your dignity remains intact

Christmas ice rinks don’t cater for beginners. There’s no private learner section with cushioned barriers where adults can practice walking like newborn giraffes without feeling inadequate. Why abandon your self-respect by subjecting yourself to the torture of inching around the ice gripping onto the sides, when you could just say ‘F**k that’ and find a pub?

PRO: A greatly reduced risk of spending the night in A&E

Propelling an inexperienced, gravitationally erratic human around on a slippery surface is Christmas-in-a-cast waiting to happen. And not just for yourself: anyone within limb-flailing radius is at risk. It could be your partner offering sarcastic encouragement or the toddler headed straight for you pushing a trainer penguin, but somebody’s going to land so hard on their arse they’ll cough up their coccyx.

PRO: You won’t end up decking a skating twat

Proficient ice skaters are members of a cult who believe they are the chosen ones, and tolerate your existence only if you exalt theirs. These pirouetting peacocks laugh and throw withering glares at your lack of skill. Not having to resist the urge to stick a leg out as a teenage ice-prick floats past is a good reason not to participate.

PRO:  Use the money saved to enjoy a hot drink with other non-skaters

Christmas is a time for spreading goodwill and being sociable, so why not treat yourself to a warming hot chocolate and stand with other like-minded people staying dry and happy while watching idiots fall over. Maybe offer friends and family on the ice a cheery wave. You can do this because your wrists aren’t broken. Because you didn’t ice skate.

France manager's team talk focusing on meaninglessness of existence

FRANCE manager Didier Deschamps has told his team that existence is meaningless, all life’s strivings end in death, and winning will not bring them happiness.

The manager, who won World Cup and Euro trophies as a player, lit an unfiltered Gauloise and told his squad that those victories were dust on the wind as theirs would soon be.

He said: “Life is brutal and it is pointless. To achieve a goal is to realise its meaninglessness and to stare into the abyss of extinction.

“When we won in 2018 I have never felt so hollow. Afterwards I sipped Rioja and thought to myself, this wine is real. This bread is real. The World Cup? A mirage.

“That night I began an affair with my sister-in-law. Why not? We would meet in anonymous hotels along the Biarritz coast and make love like animals, like strangers. There was more truth in our fervent couplings than in anything sanctioned by FIFA.

“Afterwards, sweat cooling on our naked bodies, we discussed philosophy. Sartre, Foucault, the great goalkeeper Camus, and I understood that my destiny was to manage my country until I embraced the failure of my brief time in this lighted void.

“Will that failure come tonight? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But however long we triumph, we only postpone the certainty that it will come. So let’s go out there, and play football.”

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