A Matter of Life and Death

Ronni's challenge is this: to wean a die-hard football fan off the not-so-beautiful game. She needs a guinea pig on whom she can try out her theory. Who better than her best friend and ex-boyfriend, the truly obsessed Alistair McGowan?

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Ronni Ancona is fed up with football: the way it dominates TV, takes over men's brains and scuppers any chance of romance. And so, for the sake of women everywhere, Ronni concocts an experiment to see if a man can be made to give up the very thing he claims he cannot live without. But who would agree to be Ronni's guinea-pig? Surely not her ex-boyfriend, Alistair McGowan, who has devoted much of his life to the game, from a childhood obsession with kicking a ball about to an adult addiction to Ceefax football pages and an unhealthy interest in attendances? Over the course of a year, we follow TV's best-known male/female double act in a hilarious battle of the sexes. Using replacement techniques - walks, culture and endless rounds of toast and Marmite - Ronni does all she can to distract her former boyfriend during these early months of withdrawal. But what happens when a man gives up the thing he loves most? And after being 'clean' for the whole summer, will the lure of a new season break his resolve? Part memoir of a football addict, part comedy self-help manual, A Matter of Life and Death is a brilliant, banter-fuelled book about the differences between men and women.