If I touch a star, will i twinkle too?

‘You are not going to believe this!’ screeches the receptionist at work.

‘Believe what?’ I reply, dreading where this conversation may lead.

‘I saw David Beckham yesterday,’ she says. ‘Seriously, I was literally five feet away from him in New York city.’

I sigh. Being the soccer person at work isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Sometimes you have to take one for the team.

‘I couldn’t believe it,’ she goes on and on. ‘He was right there. Getting out of a limo. Surrounded by bodyguards. He’s so cute!!’

Where do I start with this woman? How can I possibly react to this type of provocation without saying something that might have me reported to Human Resources? Still, she continues.

‘I hadn’t even time to take a picture with my phone. It all happened so fast it was magical.’

Magical. That’s the word that does it for me. Magical.

‘Okay, honey, I hate to break this to you, David Beckham is a very average soccer player turned plausible clothes horse.’ I pause to watch her face begin to drop, the wide-eyed smile disappear. ‘Indeed, he once played on a Manchester United team where he was possibly the seventh-best player behind Keane, Giggs, Scholes, Sheringham, Schmeichel and Stam. He has only one foot, absolutely no pace and, for nearly a decade now, his career has been more about his ability to sell merchandise than to sell dummies to defenders.’

She’s looking at me like I’m speaking a foreign language so I decide to plough on.

‘Now he’s over here growing his brand, sitting in some sort of makey-uppy quarterback role with the LA Galaxy hitting lazy, long, hopeful crossfield passes that he can’t quite pull off. And moaning non-stop to referees when opponents have the temerity to tackle him or run past him. And the worst part is idiots like you think this is great because his wife – who is far from posh by the way! – is some sort of pseudo-glamorous icon.’

I stop there, not wanting to reduce the woman to tears but, to my shock, she actually talks back.

‘You aren’t going to the MLS All-Star game in New Jersey tonight then?’ she asks, like every word has gone flying over her head.