Maya Angelou once wrote, “I refuse to allow any man-made differences to separate me from any other human beings,” and by and large I heartily endorse this…except when it comes to one thing - TV sport!

It’s a subject which has divided our family since I was knee-high to a grasshopper when every summer holiday was blighted by my father’s insistence on listening to cricket on the car radio.

The compromise of radio coverage was pretty much the only way we could drag him and my uncle away from the tiny black and white portable telly in our West Wales caravans to head to the beach and woe-betide anyone who dared run down the batteries on the the transistor radio which had to accompany us over the sea wall at Amroth so they didn’t miss a second of leather on willow.

After a day of John Arlott, Brian Johnston, Fred Truman and Henry Blofield we would beg for some light musical relief as we drove home sun-kissed and lightly salted only to be told there was another hour before the blessed relief of tea.

Even now the smell of wild garlic and the sound of ‘Soul Limbo’ takes me flying back to those golden days.

“What a brilliant day of TV there’s going to be tomorrow,” said my sister as we enjoyed dinner in the garden on Friday night to mark the end of my week’s holiday.

“Really?” I asked. “What’s on?”

“What’s on?” She echoed. “Only the best day ever. It starts at 6.30am with rugby, then there’s tennis, then there’s the Tour de France, then there’s football. You won’t see us tomorrow at all,” she added as a not so subtle warning to anyone thinking of dropping in.

“Seriously? That’s a good day?” I asked. “I can’t think of anything worse and it means there’s nothing for normal people to watch on a Saturday night.”

“How can you say there’s nothing to watch with all that on?” she questioned.

“I don’t think Eastenders has been on at the right time and on the right day for weeks,” chipped in the housemate miserably.

“You don’t even like watching tennis,” I said to my sister.

“I do now,” she replied. “It’s been brilliant this year and as for the Tour de France it’s amazing. They went through Bergerac the other day and it was lovely because we were there last year.”

“So you watch a load of people riding bikes for hours just to catch a glimpse of a town we visited on holiday.”

“Absolutely,” said my brother-in-law. “The commentary is really interesting. We’ve chosen the last three holidays from watching the Tour,” he added.

“I’m utterly fed up of wall to wall sport. Every time you stick the telly on there’s nothing but someone chasing around after a ball. I can’t wait for this World Cup thing to be over.” I whinged to the housemate as I flicked on the TV for a late night news catch up after everyone had left.

“And coming up later this month full coverage of the Commonwealth Games,” proclaimed the TV announcer in delight as I hurled the remote across the room.

“I give up,” I said reaching for my book.