Stoke City v Tottenham Hotspur - live! Tom will be here soon enough. If you get here before him, read this interview with Benoît Assou-Ekotto. It's a good 'un. Benoît Assou-Ekotto first met Steve The Visionist in his early days in London. He had dropped into a barber's shop off the Tottenham High Road, looking for someone to do his shape and he liked what he saw. The Tottenham Hotspur full-back has stayed with Steve ever since, following him when he has moved shops. Their partnership and friendship, they guesstimate, spans six or seven years. "The thing about Ben," Steve says, "is that he is loyal. And real. Forget his hair. The thing that makes Ben famous is his realness. Steve ought to be famous, too. Never mind the self-styled moniker, there is a charisma and largesse about the Liverpool-supporting Jamaican who, out of respect to Assou-Ekotto and his shop's proximity to White Hart Lane, also looks out for Tottenham. Steve loves to talk about football, Assou-Ekotto does not and so when the latter sits down in the chair, the conversation is one-sided. It's always, 'What do you think? Ronaldo or Messi?' Assou-Ekotto says, blowing out his cheeks and scarcely concealing the boredom. Or maybe, because he is a Liverpool fan, 'Torres was good' ... blah, blah, blah. I don't particularly like talking about football. I don't immerse myself in it. As if to illustrate the point, Assou-Ekotto looks blank when Luis Suárez's biting of Branislav Ivanovic comes up. "He did what?" he asks. Il a mangé? If he is joking, the deadpan expression is inscrutable. Surely, Benoît ... come on. But no, it is plain. He has no idea. Assou-Ekotto has never got the fuss about football and footballers.