DASHED home for the television special on Jose Mourinho which was to be presented by Gary Lineker . . .nothing is perfect.

Had to dash home from play by Jean Paul Sartre, actually (absolutely true).

Dashed home, placated loved ones, kicked off shoes and the next thing you know, it's some Norn Iron holiday programme containing the immortal line "And the summer season starts here in Portrush".

When I say immortal I mean that we seem to have been hearing it forever.

Re-scheduled, you see. It is at such moments that iron, and not just Norn Iron, enters the soul. The key is, as I think Sartre has demonstrated, to remain calm. Try to work out what the enemy is thinking. Had the Jose Mourinho special been eclipsed by the BBC Norn Iron holiday programme?

(Adult twins tried out beauty treatments: "I had a bit of a problem with the wax strips, " said one twin. ) Or had it been cancelled as a result of the strike at the BBC . . .communists, communists, communists? At the time of writing, the Jose Mourinho special was to be broadcast on Friday. I had to watch half of Jerry Maguire instead. Jerry Maguire was much better than I had remembered it, but it was slim pickings.

Never mind the news bulletins which fell to strike action, it is hard to think of an industrial action . . . or a Norn Iron initiative, whichever the hell it was . . . with consequences more dire for the female population.

It's strange how many women fancy Jose Mourinho . . . every female in the world at the last count. You have to work hard not to fancy him, in an act of real perversity . . . like being vegan or a socialist or something.

Jose Mourinho is not big and strong. He is not young or particularly clever. He's not even all that rich . . . yet. Most strangely of all, he seems like a nice guy. Make that charming. Even his football colleagues like him. Porto fans made the most of this by singing songs about him at opposing teams.

The last line of one song went "He is sleeping with your wife". The thing is that Jose probably wasn't. He's not a slapper like Sven. Although there are men, apparently, who wouldn't mind if their wives slept with Jose. A fact which goes very strongly against the argument that conversations which take place in front of the television are boring. Men do like Jose. The worst thing that they can say about him is that he has a big head. A rather sad response, one would have thought, but still it has sparked debate in our house several times.

Men could surely take heart from the fact that if you're a skinny bloke, all you have to do is spend a year's salary on a cashmere coat and hang around getting photographed. The importance of Jose Mourinho's Armani is rather disturbing. He seems to find it disturbing himself. He gave the coat up for a charity auction and then resolved to buy it back because he missed it so much. I went away before the conclusion of this tragedy was reached.

However, I was here when they started showing those American Express ads which have Jose in a leather coat. To which we can only say . . . no, no, no and again no. A very bad move for American Express. Who is going to give their money to a credit card company which cannot dress one of the most attractive men in the world?

And I was also here when Jose went through an unfortunate phase of wearing tracksuits (! ) on the bench. Bitter days.

With the coat gone, he was so terribly diminished that one had to ask oneself about the possibility of fetishism. After all, what's the difference between those guys who insist that their wives wear thigh high waders, and women who find their interest in Jose Mourinho cooling when he's wearing a Ferguson tracksuit? (Footballing note: Ferguson sponsors Chelsea FC, the club which is lucky enough to see Mourinho every day).

Men cannot deny that Jose Mourinho is handsome, though. There was a great moment on the radio a couple of months ago as Bobby Robson remembered his management days at Porto, when Jose Mourinho worked as his interpreter.

Robson said something like "I had to ask him not to stand too close to me though, because he's so good looking". There was a murmur of assent from Pat. I'd never heard men discuss another man's beauty that way before. That brief exchange was an opera of admiration and loss . . . the kind of opera that women get to sing every day.

Football doesn't do much for the masses.

It's one half of the bread and circuses policy after all. All it does is take your money and break your heart when it is not, as in the FA Cup Final, stunning you with its monotony.

Of course, Jose is too good to be true and is bound to be brought down by a scandal . . .preferably sexual. But by the time you have read this you will have enjoyed the show.