Whatever you do, do not, under any circumstances, read on past the end of this sentence, something bad will almost certainly happen to you if you do.

Relax. You’ll be fine. Probably. It was just an experiment. Do you see? When someone tells you not to do something, some part of our deeply-ingrained lizard brain just cannot stand up to the temptation to do it anyway and find out for ourselves what it’s really like.

That simple fact is why we can’t really ever learn from other people’s mistakes, we generally have to make them for ourselves.

‘Don’t touch that, it’s hot...’ Hmm, but is it though? It doesn’t look hot. No, they must be mistaken. I think I’m just going to reach out with just one finger and.... ow.

And so it is with elite sportsmen, particularly those under the age of 25.

Fame and fortune and sporting prowess is no barrier to being a complete idiot. In fact, it could be said it actively contributes to increased levels of idiocy, making young men (and yes, it is men 99.9% of the time) exist in some bubble of unreality which makes them detached from the real world.

Whether it is shoplifting toilet seats, ‘guffing on laughing gas’ (or nitrous oxide to you, me and dentists) or now smoking a hookah in a shisha cafe, it seems boys will be boys... even if they earn tens of thousands a week.

Raheem Sterling – nearly as overrated as he is poorly-advised if you ask me – is just a 20-year-old lad who grew up on an estate in north west London.

No doubt he has a code of conduct from Liverpool FC saying ‘don’t smoke shisha or inhale... well, anything really’ but he’s just doing what he’d be doing had he never had a ball placed at his feet, it’s just unfortunate that he’s surrounded himself with people who would leak pictures to the media.

It almost makes one wonder whether the timing of these pictures coming out might dissuade Europe’s big-guns from making a move for the player and make it more likely he signs a new deal at the club who will not discipline him for these indiscretions.

Funny how things work out isn’t it?

*

This week I made the bold claim that James Tredwell ‘deserved’ to win his second England Test cap, more than five years after his first.

My comment sparked general indignation in some quarters, people suggesting he’s not the best red-ball spinner at Kent, let alone in England, and that there was no point picking him with Adil Rashid in better form and having six years on him.

My ‘deserved’ comment was merely based on the loyal, unwavering service Tredders has provided to his country and the ECB. He has been dragged from Scotland to Sri Lanka and the Netherlands to New Zealand over the past six years, jumping through hoops, often at short notice, and sadly often to be installed as 12th man or left out entirely.

He has never grumbled, he is just happy to have the honour of representing England – yes that’s correct, it should be an honour, not a right.

So maybe there was an Englishman in the world on Monday afternoon who could turn it more, flight or disguise it better, however they had not put in the hard graft to earn that Test spot that Tredders has.

Maybe they will in time, but this week, he deserved it the most.