THERE really is no escape these days. For all the media attempts to define the essence of summer as stawberries and cream at Wimbledon, tumbling in the mud at T in the Park or inane sexual shenanigans on Big Brother, fitba still creeps through the cracks of the close season and demands our attention.

Flicking through the channels late at night earlier this week, I stumbled across one of the most bizarre fillers ever to take up space on the box: Gaelic fitba. Presumably having struggled to fulfil a Gaelic broadcasting quota, Scottish Television had exclusive highlights of an amateur match from some picturesque corner of the north-west Highlands.

The game was watched in the flesh by one distracted-looking elderly chap in a bunnet and a gaggle of urchins behind one goal, intent on demonstrating their mastery of profane hand gestures to an unfortunate goalkeeper. The Gaelic-speaking commentators made game attempts at stirring up enthusiasm, but were somewhat undermined by the portly players' muted celebrations each time a goal was sclaffed into the net; they looked almost ashamed (is participation in football the act of a social pariah in shinty country?)

I had no interest in who won and neither, it seemed, did anyone else, but my neutrality and the lilting, unintelligible commentary was strangely pleasing. It was less like watching football and more like the the zen bliss of Burt Bacharach-soundtracked Teletext pages on BBC2 in the wee small hours of a Tuesday morning.