The idea of boxing is to punch somebody in the head. This is a bad idea: the head happens to contain the brain, and that, in the immortal words of Woody Allen, is my second-favourite organ.

The aim of any boxing match is to cause more permanent brain damage in your opponent than you yourself sustain. There is no such thing as temporary brain damage.

Boxing is unacceptable: but not because it is dangerous. I take part in risky sports myself on a more or less daily basis. When people get injured or killed in the horsey sports or motor sports or while climbing, yachting or skydiving, it is because things have gone horribly wrong. When people get killed in boxing, it’s because things have gone horribly right.

You might just about make a case for the right of people to take part in boxing by mutual consent and in full knowledge of the risks: but that doesn’t make it a legitimate public spectacle. I don’t really have a moral problem with boxers: but I do have a moral problem with the audience.

All boxers are exposed to two forms of brain damage: the traumatic kind, when a man is stretchered from the ring, and the subtle and cumulative kind that is punch-drunk syndrome.

The brain is a rum thing: it’s not just about what you do, it’s also about what you are. I don’t think that damaging your brain is a terribly smart idea, and I don’t find it amusing to watch people damaging each other’s brains.

It’s not a question of squeamishness or risk-aversion or aesthetics or snobbery. Rather, it is a belief that the brain is quite an important bit of kit. I don’t really think that the deliberate smashing up of brains is appropriate as a form of public entertainment in the 21st century.