Uncertain identity

Robert Fanshaw is not my real name. Probably. If you stick with my blog for a while you'll see why I would want to create some doubt.

My wife, however, really is called Caroline. She appears in the title of my blog because she leads a more interesting life than I do.

I am a junior barrister, as Forbes-Brown reminds me. Forbes-Brown is a partner in the commercial law firm that bungs work our way when petty squabbles work their way up to the higher courts. His office is museum of 1980s technology. Everything is still done on paper and his secretary prints out his emails and leaves them in a neat pile on his desk. My work is dull stuff, but if anything interesting happens with the ageing rock group that can't agree about royalties I will tell you. Or that American firm that bought a chocolate company and found it came with a load of bolshie old age pensioners in almshouses.

Caroline keeps asking when will I earn some serious money like everyone else in the legal profession. Her job is more interesting. She's a high-flyer with a dynamic corporate outfit which I will call Monsaint Medical Instruments (MMI). Caroline and half a dozen young colleagues have been identified as the potential next generation leaders in Monsaint. They are being given leadership training and special projects to play with. I've met some of her colleagues: they're a nice enough bunch, if you can stand the relentless positive attitude.

Fortunately life is not just work. Life is also football. I am one of the derided prawn sandwich eating Manchester United fans who clog up Virgin first class and the northbound M6 on alternate weekends. Caroline, a modern woman in many ways, does not understand football, but she did go White Hart Lane recently with the American boss of MMI. He and his ex-pat pals are Clint Dempsey fans. More on that in a later post. It's been a good season at Old Trafford but there have been too many anxious half-times.

Do men understand women better or worse than women understand football? In the course of time I hope my blog, and your comments, shed some light on this question.