Is that a gun in your pocket?

"You sound like you have your head down the toilet", said Lovely Paris Friend, calling from his southern idyll in Castres on Friday evening.

"I do", said I. "I'm changing the seat."

"Good God."

"I know. They call me Homo-Brico".

And so began the weekend of manly activities.

Within hours of arriving, my super-sized brother had broken the toilet seat, leading me to a late, last-minute dash to buy another and get it fitted before we went out 'on the town'.

Out on the town largely involved a beer or two before returning home to a dvd and an early night. In fact, every night this last weekend saw me in bed before midnight. I would lie there thinking 'surely this isn't Saturday night' and imagining what my friends were all up to.

To be honest, I started to worry that I'd turn straight, what with all the early nights, Clint Eastwood movies, DIY escapades and manly chatter. That was until the football match on Sunday.

Now, I agree, football matches aren't the puffiest of activities, but this weekend I had to take what I could get. Seek out the gayness. Look for the sparkle in the dullest of environments.

The match was Paris Saint Germain versus Nancy, and I'd planned to cheer 'Nancy' all the way. However, this wasn't a good idea. PSG have a reputation for being the roughest team in the league, with the Boulogne Boys being their extreme right-wing supporters. Naturally I had managed to buy a pair of seats just by their 'enclave' in the Boulogne stand.

My brother loved this though, and kept saying how he wished his home team (for whom he has a season ticket) had such animated fans. The filthy dirty chants were funny. The flag waving and drum beating was rather cool. But when they started throwing flares (the fireworks, not the jeans) into other parts of the stand I started to worry.

Anyway, it seems this behaviour is all pretty much part of the show and the police dealt with it all effectively and swiftly. Which leads me to the reason I was happy to find myself at the football on a Sunday afternoon.

Just in front of our stand were a group of policemen, who were apparently employed to watch the crowd and keep an eye out for anything untoward. As it was a sporting event they were wearing their standard issue police tracksuits. Royal blue, and tight, tight, tight. I'm sure you can see where this is going.

In a bid to keep warm, the policemen would jog up and down in front of the stand. They must have been drinking Pepsi, because they certainly had 'more bounce to the ounce'. It was a sight to behold and certainly held my interest.

The thing is, I know that Paris cops carry guns, but boy were these guys packing. And they looked like they were ready to fire at any moment.

As the crowd jumped up to cheer the first of the four PSG goals, I found myself looking the other way, away from the goal to where the policemen stood. My brother looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

"See something you like down there?" He asked.

How to tell him that finally, I'd found a sporting activity that I could enjoy?