On Saturday afternoon, I was sitting in Pisa airport waiting for my plane back to England after a week’s holiday, desperate to find out how Brentford were getting on in our opening match of the season against Carlisle United.

So, I decided to ignore the dire warnings about “data roaming charges” that had been flashing up on my phone all week and check the final score on the internet.

I’m yet to get my phonebill back and I dread to think how much my 30 seconds of browsing cost me, but it’s safe to say that this moment of excess will go down in the history of civilisation as one of the biggest wastes of time and money since Brentford decided it would be a good idea to employ Terry Butcher.

A 2-0 defeat away to Carlisle United was disappointing to say the least but, after a brief lull, my brain was suddenly flooded with positive thoughts. It was an off day, the new signings need time to gel, the long journey to Cumbria would have taken a lot out of the players and, let’s not forget, Norwich lost 7-1 on the opening day of last season and ended up winning the league.

It was as if my brain was employing an automatic defence mechanism to stave off the pain of facing up to the fact that we had just lost.

As wondrous an organ as the brain is, it hasn’t quite developed the power to sustain this kind of positivity for an entire football season, so I’m making the most of the optimism while it lasts.

Take, for example, our second match of the season, Tuesday night’s Carling Cup encounter with Cheltenham Town.

On the plus side, we had a great first half. The Bees scored twice and we could have had more.

New signings Gary Alexander and Robbie Simpson looked particularly impressive during the opening period and because it is early in the season I am choosing to take this part of our performance away from the game as my abiding memory.

I will ignore the second half, when the Robins ran us ragged and we couldn’t string two passes together, and instead look forward to Saturday’s home match against Walsall with hope in my heart.

The players will, after all, have had even more time to gel, our midfield maestro Toumani ‘Dave’ Diagorouga could be back and there should be a decent crowd in.

With all of these positives, things couldn’t possibly go wrong, could they?