Wynne Gray: Plenty of sound and fury - but most of it coming from my household

Variations on the "Are they racing?" inquiry infested my household at the weekend.

All of us admit we do not know a gybe from a joke or a luff from a laugh but we all felt the surge of patriotic interest when the cats hit the starting box.

As the America's Cup zig-zagged its way towards its apparent weekend conclusion, there was a renewed bout of questions about the time of the next day's television viewing.

Told that coverage started soon after 8am Saturday and Sunday morning, there were howls of indignation about having to rise early.

Apparently it was my fault their sleep would be interrupted, even if mine is disturbed much earlier on a regular five-day roster by one of my crew.

She insists doors slamming are not her fault, it is the wind, and she can't help it if her shoes make a repeated and what seems like an ascending noise every time she makes a step. Breakfast cereal crashes into a bowl, the fridge door shuts with the sound of a bank vault and kitchen utensils have a habit of falling from her grasp.

Never been the most co-ordinated that one but she wants to know all about the America's Cup.

We managed to get into Saturday's race before the tide of invective from the noisy one and the child bride hurtled my way with more current than the waters in San Francisco Bay.

"What a friggin' joke, why don't they just let them finish, who makes these rules, where's the justice in that, we were out in front how can they take that point away from us when it started, and so on..." My lack of sailing knowledge and some mumbled excuse about rules and a television broadcasting window provoked more abuse. It was my fault again.

Perhaps Sunday would be fine I suggested as a limp get out of jail explanation.

"It better be, I'm not getting up to watch this sort of no-show again," came the chorus.

A suggestion came just as quickly to me but fortunately, it stalled in my larynx.

That was smart but when the elements refused to co-operate yesterday with the wind oscillating around its own tailbone and all sorts of other meteorological mumbo-jumbo, I was in the firing line once more.

"Why don't they sail? It's the same for both, half the interest should be about how they deal with a race no matter what the conditions are."

Then the clincher. "I've got a timetable too. I want to go to the gym and wash my hair but I can't because we don't know what's going to happen. Now they are waiting 'til 9.40am to decide if it is on."

She wandered off to the shower and returned with glistening hair to the news that racing was cancelled until today. Her response was not fit for this column. Now if she could harness that wind power to some jobs around the house ...