I MUST confess, I don’t understand football. I know the aim is to score more goals than your opponent. That’s it for me.

I’m at a disadvantage when it comes to casual sport conversation. My grandson recently asked me who my favourite Brighton and Hove Albion player is. I know the manager is Chris Hughton, but I’ve no idea who any of the players are. My wife had to intervene.

It began like the final round of a Question of Sport where the captain tries to act out a word – my wife frantically signalling to me and mouthing a name. I’m no good at charades, so it failed.

Eventually, she named a player and I agreed with her. The problem is, I can’t remember the name she gave me.

Many people can name all of the Kardashians (I know they all begin with a K). Ardent sports fans will memorise team sheets, not just for football but many other sports.

We look up to these people who can retrieve sporting or celebrity facts, especially if there’s a question in the pub quiz.

Elite athletes have skills, fitness, stamina and tactical knowhow that truly is impressive. Their fame is often hard won with many sacrifices.

Actors and writers will have skills and abilities they hone over time. In the case of some “famous” people, they seem to be famous simply for being, well, famous. They’ve no discernible talent or skill. This is best exemplified by those who attain fame for no other reason than they took part in a reality TV programme. Sadly, we’ve seen two suicides related to a reality show, Love Island, in the last nine months. It would be wrong to say that the shows led to the suicides, correlation is not causation. But the authorities and, I hope, the production team, will make sure that this is indeed the case and that the programmes have safeguards and support for contestants.

Fame is odd. What we value and see as important is strange. For me, memorising lists of football players or dates of famous sporting victories is peculiar, I see no real benefit. There again, the things I have stored and can recall will most likely seem strange to many people (it’s mostly science stuff).

Where I do have a problem is with the vacuous nature of the fame many young people attempt to find.

The fame that comes with no hard work, precious little skill and how it’s viewed as almost a “right” by some.

It may have started, for all I know, with Andy Warhol’s famous 1968 quote, “in the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes”.

That’s more likely today that it ever was in the 1960s. With tabloid journalism, social media and reality TV ever hungry for people who want to get their “15 minutes” for little effort.

The ephemeral nature of fame is such that it will not endure. Many “famous” (possibly infamous) people have risen, then disappeared from public consciousness to live out their life in relative obscurity.

Many of them say they are much happier than when they were at the height of fame.

Others will steadily work, maintaining a low profile. Take Eddie the Eagle Edwards. A builder and plasterer who rose to fame as the amateur ski jumper. He entered the 1988 Winter Olympics and came last. It resulted in a change in the rules to ensure it could never happen again – a minimum standard had to be reached to enter the competition.

At one point it was reported he could command fees of £10,000 for a personal appearance. He was declared bankrupt in 1992. He pops up now and then on TV shows and went back to building and plastering.

The American actor, Geoffrey Owens, who starred in The Cosby Show in the 1980s, was recently photographed working as a cashier in a well-known US store. This made headline news here and in the US. What happened to Owens was “job-shaming”. People have a distorted view about the earnings actors and others are paid. Being “famous” does not necessarily equate to being rich.

The acting profession particularly is seen through such a distorted lens. Appearing in a TV show does not mean a payday that will set you up for life (or even a few months in many cases). Writers also are seen as rich when the reality is that the majority of authors earn, on average, about £10,500 per annum. Much less than the national average wage of more than £27,000. Of course some authors will earn millions, like J K Rowling or David Walliams, but these are the exception, not the rule. Fame is fickle. Chasing it for the sake of “being famous” is a very bad idea.