I’m one of those people who has no affinity for balancing on bladed contraptions.

Give me both feet planted on one board and I’m perfectly at ease, but anything that requires both feet operating independently of one another in some kind of zen-like dance; and it’s a bit like I’m trying to rodeo on cement mixers. One foot talks to the other, there’s a brief pause while they chatter amongst themselves, followed by the inevitable raucous laughter as my arse takes the brunt of the joke.

Roller-blades, ice skates, ski’s; each is its own type of masochism.

The engineering of an ice rink, however, is a feat of marvel. Its round, has no real exits, and forces people to act like mice on a perpetual wheel. For anyone who’s been to a sushi-train, there are some similarities here that one might draw worthy of metaphor.

I’ve come to appreciate that trying to pick up at the rink is a bit like the “extreme sport” of how speed-dating must be.

Typically, you have three seconds to introduce yourself, state your intentions, ask for courting permission, and swap contact information. Unfair as that may sound, three seconds is all you get – because by the second pass on the rink they’re no longer skating on the outer edge and have decided you’re some kind of looney. To be fair, that’s probably true – so the real challenge, then, is in the delivery.

Try it out some time.