I was talking to someone about American Football at work. Specifically about which TV channels were showing it – I am sure you were all as relieved as me that Sky announced their coverage was going to continue after a last minute agreement to continue the relationship between the NFL and themselves. “And BBC have got Monday Night Football on the red button,” I informed said colleague.

At this stage a woman sat by us informed us that she had never used the red button. “Fuck off,” I nearly said. Then I remembered she was quite important. Quite important and supposedly intelligent. It turns out she hadn’t tried it because “we don’t have Sky” and “we didn’t know if you had to pay”.

The not having Sky thing. That’s odd. Why would you think having Sky was an issue? Why would someone think Sky was an issue. She referred to seeing it on Springwatch. I can’t get my head around seeing Chris Packham saying “and if you press the red button you can choose to watch some field mice scurrying around a kennel or some reed warblers warbling in the reeds” and then think ‘I wish I had Sky because this BBC programme has mentioned pressing a coloured button and that kind of thing must be associated with the satellite broadcaster Sky television and you must have to pay for it.’

It’s like…it’s like…thinking you can’t send a text message from an iPhone because you don’t have a Nokia charger. Or not thinking you can turn the volume up on your television because it’s something you’ve seen other people do at their house and you you don’t have the same remote control as they do.

Does this say something about this woman’s naivety or something about the perceived power of Sky? It’s the former isn’t it? She’s just ridiculously unaware of how something works – something that has been ubiquitous on BBC TV coverage of everything for several years.

Here’s how Pele and Elton John reacted to the above anecdote.