As If

So that time is approaching again. The full list of my 2008 New Year resolutions (working title Things I Will Definitely Do This Year, Honest) has yet to be finalised. But I thought I'd set down the latest draft. In the hope of at least remembering a few of them after January 5th.

1. Get Fat. Obesity is now more reviled than glue sniffing and alcoholism, and is fast approaching paedophilia and heroin abuse. Therefore, fatties are rebels. Fatties are cool. Not quite sure how to manage this, however, given that the things which make you obese (watching TV, eating) are duller than the things keeping me thin (walking, chain smoking). How do they all do it?

2. Talk to more people at work so they don't think I'm a weirdo / dullard / sociopath / all of the above. I may have left this slightly too late.

3. Get addicted to at least one reality TV show. Rather necessary to fulfil Resolution 2, given that they're the only topic of conversation at work. Still trying to decide which one, however. Strictly GCSE Woodwork? Celebrity Big Brother with David Irving and Nick Griffin? How Clean Is Your Car Glove Compartment? It's a tough choice.

4. Spend more time on the things I cite as my hobbies and less on those I cover up. Which translates as: read history books instead of playing online games aimed at 10 year olds. This one tends to feature each year.

5. Stop crow-barring my epilepsy into conversations and then being so stoical that it's impossible to have a discussion about it. Though I've yet to decide whether to shut up about it entirely or turn myself into a martyr. Right now I'm leaning towards the "Woe is me" option.

6. Warn the people about Noel Edmunds. He hasn't changed, you know. He may have tried reinventing himself as a weird numbers freak on Deal Or No Deal. But I saw him on a Sky show over Christmas and he was as bad as ever. The same monstrous ego. The same smug cackle at his own joke. And obviously, the same beard. Stop him now before his terrifying resurrection is complete.

7. Do at least one blog entry a week. My fan base – two people in Sheffield and my mum – deserve no less.

8. Stop doing the same tired old joke about my blog fan base. Besides, I think the Sheffield crew have abandoned me.

9. Finally find out what the bloody hell this 'emo' is. So I can claim to still be 'down' with 'the kids.' Though I'll probably conduct three months of intense online investigations just to reach the same answer as the question about the blues. If you have to ask, you'll never know. And it'll have gone out of fashion by then anyway.

10. Get out and meet people. Yeah. That'll happen.

11. Smoke less, worship God, spend less, work harder, be nicer, greet each day with a smile on my face yah-di-yah-di-yah. See the footnote to Resolution 10.

Oh No They Aren't

Perhaps this isn't the right time of year to be doing a piece on arrogance. But I think I've said everything I've got to say about Christmas over the past 34 years. Meanwhile a couple of remarks in today's Guardian caught my attention.

One was uttered by everyone's favourite history bore, David Starkey. Starkey has made a decent career out of sucking up to British monarchs, so it's surprising that he's started laying into our current one. The Queen is a poorly educated philistine, he claims. In a late challenge to the most tasteless insult of the year, he compares her attitude towards culture to that held by Goebbels. By way of evidence, he cites an occasion when he was showing her around an exhibition he had curated. Practically her only comment was to say she needed a drink. (Or at least, to complain her gin and Dubonnet was late arriving, but this is the Queen). Frankly I think it very likely that the Queen is a philistine. It's telling, however, that Starkey doesn't even consider the alternative. That his exhibition was shite and she was trying to avoid saying so. Appreciating culture, apparently, is synonymous with appreciating David Starkey.

The other comment came in a wonderful piece about Santa Claus impersonators. Most were struggling actors, of course, and not happy with what they are reduced to. One moaned "Father Christmas is only one step up from panto." Which surprised me because I though it was quite a few steps down from that. In fact, it's possibly on an entirely different staircase. Pantomimes don't have the greatest scripts but they offer lines a bit more demanding than "Ho ho ho, what's your name, little boy?" Former celebrities banished from television tend to end up in panto; your Bonnie Langfords, your Ronnie Corbetts, your Les Dennis' (or should that be Les Denni?) None, to my knowledge, have been reduced to putting on a beard and getting groped by children in BHS.

Personally, I don't knock those in pantomime. I've been in one myself, while in the Sixth Form. It wasn't easy. There was the experience of playing at Bootham Mental Hospital in front of an audience barely able to feed themselves, let alone know when to chant "He's behind you!" There was the morning after the Christmas party when a severe hangover left me barely able to stutter a single line. There was the performance when hi-larious backstage pranksters replaced the cardboard beanstalk with a giant penis. And they were just the gigs themselves. Getting the thing onto the stage involved daily battles between the fundamentalist Christian directors who objected to every single irreverent joke inserted by the atheist writers. A struggle which turned into an all-out religious war, culminating in the Great Death Song Controversy. It was a tough time.

So if every performance of Mother Goose or Cinderella is half as rocky, respect is due to all those involved. I understand the Father Christmas' looking down on somebody. We all need to sneer at those below us. And this lot need more comfort than most, with work experiences varying from being propositioned by amorous mothers to watching your Little Helpers get drunk and fall in the lake. But they've chosen the wrong targets here. There are still street mimes, after all. There are Sealed Knot Society foot soldiers. There are people who dress up as Romans and give out leaflets. Don't pick on the man in the wig and the 44D bra.

A Clue, My Dear Watson

So on Friday morning, I returned to my desk to find I had written 'Grey Owl' on a post-it note. Frowning, I studied the words carefully. The script was definitely mine; and there was nothing else on the note. Given that:

a) We have no suppliers, clients, employees, contacts or enemies whose name fully or partially contains these words;

b) It is extremely unlikely that on Thursday I had heard, saw, thought of, talked about, eaten or copulated with a grey owl;

and c) There isn't technically, or even descriptively, anything such as a grey owl to be found anywhere near where I work;

Well, given all that, the message perplexed me a little.

I threw the note away eventually. And I regret this now. Just in case I am found slumped lifeless over my keyboard early one morning. Then a Poirot-type detective might have found the note and spent weeks trying to tie the words back to my killer. Until he finally reached the conclusion that I did. It is a clue simply of a mind going slowly but inexorably insane.

Not Shaken Or Stirred

Watched The Spy Who Came In From The Cold yesterday. Not for the first time and hopefully not for the last. John le Carré novels always worked well on film, where his fine plots and characters aren't held back by his rather mediocre prose. It also helped that they featured some especially brilliant actors. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold starred Richard Burton, a man whose whisky-soaked charisma practically staggers out of the screen.. Later Alec Guinness would make spymaster George Smiley his own and infuse the role with his wonderful brand of sinister melancholy.

However, I also couldn't help thinking that le Carré must be in despair nowadays. His books seemed to be a concentrated attack on the glamorising of spies during the Cold War. A tendency epitomised by James Bond, of course, smirking around in his tux like an aristocrat, shooting or shagging everyone in sight. Le Carré created shabby, melancholic little men; and they knew the truth about their fellow operatives. "Drunks… hen-pecked husbands… civil servants playing Cowboys and Indians to brighten up their drab lives," Burton's character spits. He also sums up the level of morality involved: "Yesterday I wanted to kill Mundt because he was evil and my enemy," he says of a Communist double agent. "Today he's evil, and my friend." Le Carré's approach became popular for a while. Even a writer as mediocre as Len Deighton could put some balance and intelligence into his Cold War yarns.

And now? Spies are superheroes again and every bit as banal. James Bond is seemingly indestructible, each new film as inevitable and over-publicised as Christmas. In Jack Ryan, Tom Clancy somehow created a character even worst; morally impeccable, utterly lifeless. On TV, meanwhile, Spooks and 24 seem locked in a bitter contest to see who can be the most absurd. Cops, doctors and even, for that matter, superheroes, can be deeply flawed and barely functioning sociopaths. Spies have to be two dimensional.

It's unfortunate because a more balanced portrayal is needed right now. One of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold's central themes was that your methods cannot afford to be less wicked than your enemy's. Morality only plays a part in your ultimate goals. And this had grim consequences when the West was just fighting totalitarian regimes who shot individuals they suspected were guilty. How about now, when the enemy blows up groups without caring who is innocent? Have our tactics become more brutal to match? It would seem so, from the accounts which have seeped out from Guantanamo Bay and Iraq. But you'll be lucky to see any acknowledgement on screen.

'The Virgin of the Rocks'

In his impressive recent program 'This Is Civilisation,' Matthew Collins explored the different impacts the Greek and Christian religions had on art. The ancient Greeks were obsessed with physical perfection. Their gods and goddesses were supermodels; essentially like us but much more beautiful. This civilisation found both aesthetic and spiritual bliss in a well-proportioned statue of a naked boy. A notion which vanished when Christianity conquered Europe, Collins argued. Not only were statues of the gods condemned as idolatry, the human form itself became problematic. The body was seen as transient, it was the source of sin. So much so that the central image of Christianity became a body pierced and broken so that the spirit could live forever.

I knew which picture Collins would show to illustrate art's dramatic change of direction. There have been thousands of Jesus dying on the cross, but one still stands out. Grünewald, of course. His ghastly Crucifixion which is slapped across the Isenheim Altar. Jesus is twisted unnaturally on the cross, head slumped. His outstretched arms are as thin as twigs, his pierced skin already the colour of rotting flesh. Grünewald embraced the cruellest side of Christianity and became immortal as a result. His altarpiece is frequently used to show the gloom of the Middle Ages, just as Texas Chainsaw Massacre epitomises the 'video nasty' boom of the 1980's; though Crucifixion is more horrific than any of Leatherface's antics.

The gruesome Grünewald is only one part of Christian art, however. And the crucifixion is only one pole of the Jesus story. More artists clustered around the other, the one we are preparing to commemorate: his birth. Here we get not a hatred of the human form but a celebration of it. And with this comes a joyous representation of humanity itself. This happened most vividly in the Renaissance paintings. The Renaissance, of course, was a rediscovery of classical methods and ideals. And the body became beautiful again. More importantly it became living and three dimensional, after the flat mannequins of the Middle Ages. This was partly because of the development of scientific techniques and observation, a tendency which Leonardo da Vinci perhaps took to excess. It was also because of the notion that humans and human relations were worthy subjects of art.

Classical themes also became fashionable again. Such paintings were always a subsection of the Renaissance, though, and often a farcical one. They often feel like the old legends being used as an excuse to create images which would otherwise get the painter excommunicated. Want to show an orgy? Just call it a Feast of Bacchus. Violent pornography or bestiality more your fancy? Then resurrect the Rape of the Sabine Women or Jupiter getting his end off. Titian alone got away with this sort of thing and he only occasionally. The bulk of the Renaissance, and certainly the majority of its masterpieces, were Christian. Partly this was because of the piper's paymasters. Many pieces were commissioned by either Popes or Italian dukes wanting to suck up to Popes. But many artists were deeply religious too, sometimes – especially in Michelangelo's case – taking their devotion to the point of insanity.

So crucifixions dominate, and nativities and pietas and ascensions. There was also another popular theme. Christ as a toddler or a young boy with his mother. This is surprising because of its apparent irrelevance to Church dogma. Jesus rather drops out of the Bible in between his escape from Herod and his reappearance as a smart alec teen showing off in the Temple. Yet many Renaissance artists tried to fill in these lost years. The sheer variety of their images gives us a clue why. Michelangelo shows a muscular Mary leading The Holy Family, reaching up to grab her son. Caravaggio's Virgin and Child With St Anne has Christ helping his mother tramp on a serpent – the symbolic resisting of temptation turned into a nursery game. Raphael's Madonna of the Chair is all protective love, arms wrapped around her rather chubby son as she glares at us suspiciously. Again, the titles of some of these works seem to be a cloak. The images are simply the painters' statements about motherhood, maybe based on memories of their own childhood or observations of their wives. It is worth mentioning that the pictures are filled with love and devotion. The religious settings were probably useful here as well; such emotions are rarely fashionable in art otherwise.

Leonardo da Vinci's The Virgin of the Rocks is from this tradition. It has a more mysterious feel than many. The golden light which illuminates his characters and the subtlety of his shadows give it a touch of the divine. The darkness of much of the background, contrasting with a bright glow peeking through the rocks in the distance, hint of a grotto cut off from the rest of the world. Otherwise it is a realistic, if slightly stylised, representation of a family at rest.

One puzzling element, distancing it from many Virgin-and-child pictures, is that there are in fact two children. There is no obvious explanation why or even which one is Jesus. Conceivably the other could belong to the girl on the right. She has the look of a servant or a nanny, however. Da Vinci's careful arrangement of figures leaves her on the fringes; and states that the Virgin is the mother of both children. Her arm rests on the shoulders of the praying infant. Her gaze is directed towards the other while a cautioning hand sneaks towards him. This Madonna is much less protective than Raphael's. Leaning against a rock, her expression is as serene as the sunlight. Yet she emanates a calm authority over both children and seems capable of bundling them both up in an instant.

The actions of the children supply the only overtly religious details. One is down on one knee to pray. The other, placed by the water's edge, lifts a hand to bless him. Perhaps the latter is John, rehearsing the moment in later life when he will baptise his cousin. Their relationship is also suggested by Jesus' slightly higher vantage point, a sign of superiority. If so, however, it feels like an unconscious forecast. The children simply seem to be playing, mimicking the actions of adults. They also have the clumsiness of infants. Both appear to be in danger of unbalancing, the prayer not entirely secure on his rock and the blesser leaning rather too far over the water. You can understand why their mother is keeping a close eye on them both.

And the gaze keeps returning to her. She is placed almost dead centre of the canvas. And she rears over the other figures, her head the apex of one of da Vinci's triangular compositions. Not in the way Parmigianino's ridiculous Madonna of the Long Neck does, but in an arrangement which looks both natural and inevitable. This is another common feature of Virgin-and-child pictures. Mary's authority is total. Jesus may be the son of God but, at this stage, he is totally dependent on his mother. Meanwhile poor, divinely cuckolded Joseph barely features. Michelangelo puts him in the background and turns him into an old greybeard to emphasise his weakness. Da Vinci simply excludes him, replacing him with a servant girl.

The Virgin of the Rocks is so powerful because it works on two levels. The lighting and setting give it a mythical aura whilst the details are entirely realistic. In this it follows one a strand of Christianity especially strong in fifteenth century Italy – the cult of the Madonna. An ordinary woman worshipped because of her status as a mother. This was effectively an updating of the ancient tradition of the Mother Goddess – a figure somewhat terrifying but also benevolent and loving. The urge has survived because of our memories of the time when our own mothers seemed to be all-powerful beings who could guard us from anything.

Matthew Collins was partly right. When the Christian artists showed naked flesh, at least outside the classical legends, they tended to punish it. The blinded Samson blundering around the temple, a saint stretched out on a rack, Jesus dying on his cross. Only babies could do full-frontal nudity and survive. The Mother Goddess lost her multiple breasts and gained a healthy set of clothes. The Divine Conception reflects the new squeamishness towards sex – while also continuing the tradition of Jupiter's dubious 'seductions' – particularly when practiced by our own mothers and fathers. But this doesn't mean the human form itself was condemned. The opposite actually happened. The divine became humanised. Jesus was turned into a chubby, clumsy toddler dependent on his mother's protection. And religious art became a study of personal relations, rather than just the search for a perfect set of pecs.

A New Icon

I see my home, York, has won another Best City In Britain award. We get a lot of these accolades. Never the Best City To Live In, though. Just the Best City To Visit; and then escape from before you start getting depressed by the lack of, well, anything to do. My joy this time was also tempered by the fact that the award was voted by Daily Telegraph readers. To translate for non-Brits: you've heard of the phrase "just to the right of Genghis Khan"? Here we also say, "just to the right of the Daily Telegraph." Our supporters are elderly colonels who probably like York because it's "not full of all those black chappies."

Anyway, I was mildly interested by the photo accompanying the 'story' in the local free rag. It featured the Minster, of course. You still cannot have a general story about York without showing the Minster. There are laws. The cathedral was relegated to the background, however. Pride of place was given to the York Eye. A city with a history stretching back to the Romans is now epitomised by a damn great ferris wheel.

The York Eye, admittedly, is impressive. Erected a few years ago beside the National Railway Museum, it has been extremely popular with tourists. I gather that it gives remarkable views over what is still a low, flat city. It is also lit up by an ethereal light when darkness descends. You can see part of it over the Bar Walls from my office window. It is a nice spectacle to gaze upon as I work late into the evening and wonder what's happened to my life. Still, the York Eye is only a damn great ferris wheel. Moreover, it looks like all the other damn great ferris wheel which have sprung up across Britain recently; many of which, notably London's, are even damn greater.

What makes a building a symbol of a place? So much so that this one structure can always be used as a shorthand image of the whole city? Size, fame and bombast are sometimes seen as the only criteria. But I think the most important quality is originality. This building has to mean that place because nothing like it is found anywhere else. The Golden Gate doesn't work because, frankly, it's just a damn great suspension bridge. But the Guggenheim has to mean Bilbao, the Statue of Liberty New York and the Reichstag – at least since Norman Foster's deranged dome was added – Berlin.

So the Eye doesn't work as an icon of York. Nor did the Minster, however. Except for connoisseurs, it is indistinguishable from any other gothic cathedral. Or most cathedrals of any age, really – I only know it's gothic because enough books have told me so. It's just the biggest thing we have got. York has never been about size, however. If it was, it would have bothered growing into an actual city, rather than just a town which got a leg-up in status because it has a cathedral. What it does specialise in is quirkiness. There are plenty of structures here possessed by no other city, mainly because they can't imagine why they would want them. Any one would make a fine new symbol of York. As a starter, also giving a neat tie-in to my web site, I nominate A House Called House, the Rock Church or the Hand of Monkgate. And if they are less striking than a ferris wheel, if York becomes less popular and attracts a few less Daily Telegraph readers…. well, we'll just have to cope.

Wanna Buy A Sort Code, Mate?

After the disappearing tax discs (see my previous post) identity theft is in the news again. It is one of those things, like avian flu or bio-terrorism, that never entirely goes away despite its lack of substance. Whenever nothing much is happening and we're starting to look too contented, journalists always get one out of the drawer and whack us over the head with it. The term is a dramatic one but doesn't really mean the theft of a whole identity. Sometimes passport forgery is involved. Mostly, though, it just means somebody getting access to your bank account. But maybe that's all our identity is supposed to be reduced to: our savings. In the same way that 'lifestyle programs' tell us not how to style our life but how to spend our money.

The Guardian, which is supposed to know better, has been getting in on the fun. An investigation yesterday found that not only are account details being stolen, they are offered up for barter on the internet. One can apparently sidle into certain websites and thence into chat rooms. There one meets dodgy characters operating from "frozen Siberia" who offer a whole range of sort codes for a fistful of Paypal credits. Why do all the cybercriminals seems to be from Russia, incidentally? Admittedly it's a rather impoverished and lawless country, but surely some American or British criminals are muscling into the action? I suspect that some are, but use fake Russian names to give them extra credibility. Just as no spam scam is taken seriously unless it's Nigerian.

Anyway, the comedy of the story comes from the apologetic last paragraph. The Guardian's journalist bought the details of one account. A week later, he was still waiting to receive said details. This probably happens a lot: one hundred per cent of the time seems a good guess. After all, if you're a criminal with genuine account details before you, would you just sell them on to receive a fraction of their value? Or if you did sell them, wouldn't you first empty them right up to their overdraft limit? And then have a good laugh at the buyer? A lot of chat rooms resemble bad nightclubs. The ones which The Guardian is shrieking about is a seedy East End pub holding a ferret-faced man with deep pockets. He claims the gold necklaces he's offering you are genuine. He hints they are stolen. But what he's really got is the meeting of fairground trinkets and a lot of yellow paint.

Crooks con other crooks. I'm glad that it still goes on. It's an ancient practice, understandably so. One danger, that of being reported to the police, is removed. The other used to be that of the conned tracking the conner down and beating him to a bloody pulp with baseball bats. But now the miracle of the internet protects the grifters from that as well. After all, they are all hidden in frozen Siberia.

25 Million To One

The latest big story in British politics involves records. Most of the recent ones have done, actually. We have an abeyance of glamour right now, with too few ambitions and not enough crooks. Even the change of Prime Ministers earlier this year was so protracted and predictable that hardly anyone noticed when it finally happened. Instead we're supposed to get excited about numbers. Someone in government is always counting heads wrong or not counting them at all. The opposition parties scream for punishment and the rest of us wonder why we're supposed to care. The new story is more enjoyable, however. Because of its clarity, because of some of the actors involved. And also because for once it doesn't involve immigrants, so the criticisms don't carry the tang of racism.

A month ago a tax officer put the records of every person affected by child benefit claims – all 25 million of them – on two CD's and posted them to the audit office in London. They never arrived. And that, with brilliant simplicity, is all that has happened; or failed to happen. The CD's may be in the hands of master criminals even now ransacking the bank accounts of the unlucky claimants. They may be buried in a sorting room staffed by morons. They may be in Roswell, or in the pockets of Elvis or Lord Lucan. I suspect we'll never find out. In a nation awash with little shiny discs, finding them will be like looking for a needle in an entire pastoral vale, never mind a haystack. Twenty five million to one sounds about right for the chances.

TNT were the couriers who lost the discs. Even apart from the punning possibilities, this gave me a laugh. TNT are one of those companies bursting with both arrogance and idiocy. We once used them to send a package to Ireland and it turned up in Italy. Given this, the police should think alliterative and look in Luton, Leamington or Latvia for a parcel supposed to be in London. The fact that it was dispatched from the town of Washington is also fortuitous. Grand statements like "Police are raiding the Washington offices" can be made. Even though they're only referring to some scrubby little place in darkest Tyneside.

Sadly, there are signs of the story running out of steam. The head of the Inland Revenue has already resigned. Gordon Brown has already apologised. Clearly annoyed at having his demands met before he could demand them, David Cameron, leader of the Conservatives, was today reduced to insisting that Brown apologise again and again. Possibly once an hour on the hour, with the chiming of Big Ben. Action could be taken against TNT but that's probably too much to hope for. They handle all the Inland Revenue's post. If the tax office announce they're cancelling the contract there are suddenly going to be disgruntled TNT employees facing redundancy all over the country, each with sensitive documents in their vans.

What the episode has shown, once again, is how technology facilitates incompetence. Before computers, 25 million records would have filled a room. A lorry would be needed to move them, perhaps a whole convoy. Losing a giraffe would be easier. Now they can be burned onto two drinks mats and just slip away, lost amidst the second hand Coldplays and the Twenty Soul Classics Free With The Times.

Lake District - July 7th

To finish on a brighter note: Felt better today, Lorna's forgiven me. And at breakfast Emily delivered the best line of the week:
Emily: I want some toast!
Christine: What's the magic word?
Emily: No poo-poo in the bathtub!

'No poo-poo in the bathtub' was apparently the first, second and third rules of the house; though I gather all were broken on occasion. It's been a good holiday overall; just overshadowed by last year which was, frankly, a hard act to follow. The weather was the main bugger. After leaving the others me, mum and dad drove back up the valley aiming to walk around Brothers Water. And guess what: it started peeing down almost immediately. Walk curtailed, we left the Lakes and it dried up almost immediately. We ate lunch in County Durham sunshine, albeit also in a gale, overlooking the sparkling Tees and a ruined abbey. It's very bad organisation really, the part of England with the best countryside also being the wettest. It should rain most in Essex and Kent where there's no reason to go outside anyway. Add that to my extremely long list entitled 'If I Were God…'

Lake District - July 6th

Bleuch. Felt a cold starting last night. It really kicked in today, with all the flu-like paraphernalia which accompanies the early stages of my colds. What's annoying is that no other family members have colds, and I've barely been in contact with anyone else this last week, so where did it come from? Can you get bird flu from being pecked by swans? Anyway, we drove to Windermere yet again in the morning, to go to the same visitors centre we frequented last year. It's not a bad place actually. The house is a small but baroque whitewashed manor, the gardens multi-functional but mainly woodlands. The girls mucked around in the adventure playground for a time, we strolled through the woods, more stones were hurled into Windermere, we had lunch. Would have been very pleasant if it wasn't raining and if you don't have a cold. We went to another lake afterwards. I decided another slo-mo walk through drizzle wouldn't be much fun so stayed in the car, then caught the first lift back. Went to bed for a couple of hours afterwards and Lorna got into a strop with me because I wouldn't play the damn cock-a-doodle-do game with her. Not a good end to the holiday.

Lake District - July 5th

Well, that was an experience. My first proper day's mountain walking alone ever, not hindered by less fit and/or reckless sensible family members. I can definitely say I exploited the lack of both restrictions. Last year I did St Sunday Crag alone in an afternoon, which was absurd. The thought of ruining a great walk by going at a ludicrous pace has haunted me ever since, and I was determined to do it at a proper speed now. And I did start off relatively leisurely, circling round the foot of a hillside on a nice track. A short, gruelling haul then brought me above some crags, with the usual wonderful views of Patterdale and Ullswater behind me. Climbed gradually up the side of a steep hillside with Grisedale, another narrow, pretty and largely deserted valley, to the right. Sadly by now I could see the cloud on the mountain tops ahead was sometimes lifting, sometimes dropping but not, overall, going anywhere. And as I made the final ascent up to St Sunday Crag it stooped to embrace me like a lover. All I could do at the top was try to remember the fantastic views I'd glimpsed all too briefly the previous year. The plan then was to carry along the summit ridge to, finally, get up Fairfield. I then made a discovery, however. Walking alone through mountain clouds freaks me out. It's a completely irrational fear. The path was clear enough. I just hated not seeing what was on either side of it. Even though the choice was between fairly steep drops and very steep drops, and even though it was, in fact, a simply enough task to avoid actually dropping down any of them. At one point I got so spooked that I turned back for a minute. The cloud then lifted again, however, I saw into the void beyond (fairly steep drops, for the record) and could continue. Nonetheless, I decided to sod Fairfield once again and descended a precipitous little path to Grisedale Tarn.

The sensible option now would have been to make a leisurely stroll down the other side of Grisedale. Instead I opted for an absurdly ambitious circular route, beginning with a peak with the suitably ridiculous name of Dollywagon Pike. Climbed up to it via a steep, zig-zagging path. Fairfield remained stubbornly in the mists but the mountain on the far side of Grisedale Tarn made an impressive sight. A party of loudly shouting urchins were in the distance, a helicopter inexplicably carrying two large cylinders in a net went overhead, but thankfully both soon vanished into the valley beyond. Down came the cloud again as soon as I got some height and I started to feel put upon. But it continued ascending and descending, sometimes allowing an impressive vista of that far valley and the mountains beyond. Dollywagon, High Crag and Nethermost Pike all came and went fairly quickly. I didn't technically climb any of them, the path passing just below the summits. Even I, though, am not daft enough to scramble over shale and rock, risking a plummet down the cliffs on the far side, just to add three names to a list.

And then came Helvellyn. It's odd climbing Helvellyn this way. In the normal ascent from Patterdale, you're slogging up for hours and it's looming above you the whole time. Here it suddenly leaps out at you, announcing itself with the demonic line of jagged rocks which is Striding Edge. Ate lunch close to that ridge, telling myself that there was no way on earth I was going down on it. The final climb up to the summit was short and the scene up there familiar. A trig column, a sheep and a hell of a lot of cloud. Shortly afterwards, my irritation turned to panic again. I'd intended going down by Swirral Edge but couldn't work out where it began. Though there was a cairn, I couldn't see what lay beyond it. As with Monday, it could just have been another warning/evil cairn. Then the cloud abruptly lifted again. And it was glorious. The views were amazing. Striding Edge and the sheer cliffs beneath Helvellyn's summit were on one side; a row of mountains basking in an unearthly light rose up on the other. More practically, I could see where I should be going – or so I thought. Trekked down what felt like Swirral Edge, a passable but impressively narrow ridge which gradually broadened out as it descended. But the path then stopped running parallel to Striding Edge and started climbing another hill, neither of which were according to the map. A bunch of jokers on top of that hill reassured me that I was on the right route. However, after spying an abandoned old dam across the stream below and deciding the puddle beneath Helvellyn's flanks was in no way the Red Tarn, I realised I was in fact coming down into the wrong valley. After another few moments of panic, I assured myself I'd still get into Glenridding, just down the road from Patterdale. My impressive navigation continued after I'd zig-zagged to the foot of the valley. I followed an old industrial track for a while, then decided I needed to be on the other side of the stream. This required a scramble down to the water, some perilous leaps from stone to stone, another scramble up the far side. Consulting the map again, I noticed there was a perfectly good footbridge further on. Oh, and my original path would have served perfectly well anyway. Hey ho. Glenridding valley, incidentally, is less picturesque and more interesting than most in these parts. This is due to parts of it having been quarried to fuck at various times in history, leaving gaping wounds in the cliffs. There was a very odd little settlement too; a sprawl of buildings which resembled an old mining village, except that they were all new and pristine. I somehow made it to Glenridding itself without getting lost again, winding through woods and past a pleasant looking campsite. Was about to start tramping along the road to Patterdale when, luckily, dad's car drove past and stopped and I piled in gratefully. To paraphrase Harry Pearson: a walk with everything except full-frontal nudity.

Lake District - July 4th

Never sure if I just perceive that everyone else is in a bad mood at a certain time and go into a sulk in sympathy; or if I just go into a sulk independently. Regardless, I was in a sulk for much of the morning. It didn't help that we went back to the same town by Windermere (Bowness, I think) that we went to on Sunday. Which we hated then and vowed never to return, and hated last year and vowed etc. Hung about for a while again and had coffee at the same nasty café. The swans, though, cheered us up later. A mother, rather than chasing away anyone who ventured near her cygnets, had turned the brood into a tourist attraction. One swan was sat in a puddle, somehow not noticing that the largest lake in England was about ten feet away. And several more surrounded me pecking hopefully at my pockets while a juvenile tried grabbing the cigarette from my hand. (Typical bloody teenager.) We went on a Windermere cruise afterwards – again like last year, though at least from a different place. The ride might have been pleasant if it wasn't windy and raining. It was, however, so I stayed below deck most of the time. Windemere's an odd lake really. Sometimes it looks like Loch Ness, a big, grim stretch of water surrounded by mountains. At others it's more like the Thames around Marlow, the banks covered with garish mansions and privilege.

Had lunch at a rather exasperating parking place, then some of us drove back to the house to do some walking. I set out on my own again, intending to go up Patterdale for a while and then climb up to Anglesey Tarn. This had to be hastily amended when I realised the 'path' I'd seen on the map was just a boundary marking. Headed up the valley anyway on a pleasant track, through farms and patches of woodland, passing a barn full of weird angora goats. Turn around when I reached the sprawl of barns which is the 'village' of Hartsop, doubled back for a while and then climbed up to Bordale Haus again. This was supposed to be a gentler climb than the one from our house, winding gently across the hillside. I suppose it was overall, though the last stretch was a hell of a slog. Turned the other way once reaching Bordale Haus to climb a 'peak' called something like Stony Spiky Crags. What it actually was was a big grassy nodule without a path or any clear summit. Once again, though, good views from what I decided was the top. Dad's birthday today so we went on our customary meal out. We'd intended to go to the White Lion again but it was pretty much full, so called at the Patterdale Arms hotel instead. I feared this would be too snobby. You can only get so much upmarket in Patterdale, however, especially as we slummed it in the bar, and it was actually pretty nice. Fortunately we left just as the coachload of cheery pensioners from Leeds were rolling up.

Lake District - July 3rd

Had a couple of hours to myself first thing this morning and the weather was decent, so I thought I might as well do Plaice Fell properly this time. Yomped up the steep climb to Bordale Haus, the 'damp little gap' and another sharp ascent up to a secondary summit. This took me onto a patch of moorland festooned with jutting outcrops of rock. Lovely views, to Patterdale and Ullswater on one side and a rather empty valley on the other. Not especially peaceful, however, thanks to the bird life. Not just the inevitable skylark, the bird which doesn't know when to shut up, but a great flock of crows which rose up cawing belligerently in a Hitchcock-esque fashion. I made the little scramble up to the rather ostentatious chimney which is the summit of Plaice Fell and enjoyed the views down to the lowlands bathed in sunshine. A feature we haven't really experienced here; I got drenched in a rather predictable shower on the return journey.

Got back to the house just as Auntie Margaret and Uncle Steph were rolling up. They were just visiting for the day, happening to be in this part of the world on the slow trek around England which is their springs and summers nowadays. They seem in good enough spirits, all things considered. Their brass band is doing well too, even putting up a reasonable showing against the powerhouses from Yorkshire and Lancashire; where, I'm happy to report, all the brass bands come from. We had one of Christine's gargantuan buffet lunches and sang Happy Birthday to Bill, who turned 64 today. (Hopefully this Beatles milestone will encourage him to stick to lowlands walks.) Afterwards we drove to Glenridding, a village at the head of Ullswater. Inevitably it's a tourist-cum-walkers haven. It's never too crowded though and the houses, somehow all built entirely of slate, look grim enough to prevent excessive quaintness. We braved the rain for a stroll, watched a wedding party getting drenched (file under 'Looked Like A Good Idea On Paper') and walked through a nice meadow to the lake itself, which naturally gained a few more rocks courtesy of Emily and Gemma. Messed about the house for a long while afterwards, me mostly filling in the time by chasing after Emily roaring. Not the most eventful day but very nice nonetheless.

Lake District - July 2nd

Walking day today, at least for those of us – me, Gav and Bill – still able to climb mountains. And not all of the trio are, in fact, really able to do that, but more of that later. Set off from a pub just beyond Brothers Water, walking up a pretty and largely deserted little valley. We were going parallel to the main road for a while but it was inaudible, drowned out by the torrent which was Caiston Beck. Today it was mostly dry with even, God help us, a few patches of sun. Last night it rained like a bitch, however, and as a result the water was flowing down any depression in the ground with stones at the bottom. 'Pivers' we called this combination of path and river, or possibly 'strath;' though on occasion they became paterfalls.

Fortunately the ascent wasn't too steep, up the valley until we left the official river behind and reached a pass at the top. Had lunch and did a steepish little climb to what may or may not have been a summit. Got into a bit of cloud here, just thin enough for us to realise how great the views would have been if it wasn't for the damn cloud. The idea originally was to do Hart Crag, with Fairfield an additional extra. But we were going so slow that we abandoned even Plan A, leaving Hart Crag as a final peak looming over us. Unfortunately me and Gav couldn't work out where the Softie's Path began and tried relying on cairns to guide us. These just led to the tops of cliffs; and overhanging, life-threatening cliffs at that. We couldn't decide if the cairns were meant to say 'Danger! Cliffs!' and were, by an oversight, made indistinguishable from the ones proclaiming 'Follow Me! Safety!'; or if they were, in fact, evil. Finally we found the actual path, which was blindingly obvious if only we'd waited a little longer. Somewhere amidst all this blundering about I think we climbed Dove Crag though it's hard to be sure.

The path, and sometimes strath, down was one of those constructed stairways which theoretically make it easier but are agony on the knees. It led into a very nice, narrow gully with another beck gushing along the bottom. This valley, Dovedale I think, was even more desolate, with only a couple of barns which even estate agents would struggle to sell as 'fixer-uppers.' Sadly my enjoyment was hindered by Bill's worsening condition. We've been here before. He's got Parkinson's, he's in his mid 60's and he patently can't do mountain climbing anymore. He was barely able to walk for the second half today, swaying and falling over constantly. There was a terrifying moment when he plunged sideways and briefly disappeared down the slope. Luckily he only fell a few feet and had only vanished into the bracken. Still, for his own safety if nothing else, he needs to be told: that's it. Eventually we struggled back to the car, completing quite a short walk which somehow took us over seven hours. Lorna seems addicted to playing the 'Cock A Doodle Doo' game with me, a rather tedious imagination game she concocted based on the concept of cockerels crowing in the middle of the night. Though there are some interesting spins; I liked it when the hens we bought to lay us breakfast eggs instead hatched a thousand chicks which blocked out the sun.

Lake District - July 1st

A nice change in the weather today; torrential rain all the time replaced by torrential rain half the time. Mostly starting just as we were getting out of the car, but hey. Another radical break with family holiday traditions was that we stayed out the whole Sunday rather than rushing back for lunch. We didn't explode. First drove to Windermere, to the same touristy little town we stopped at last year; and I still can't remember the name. Wandered down the same lane, fooled around the same beach and I got pretty much the same photos of Emily and Gemma lobbing stones into the lake. Had coffee, hung about for ages outside a remarkably ghastly little shopping arcade. Then drove a short way along the lake for lunch at a picnic resort. Great drops started falling when we were part-way through, sending us scurrying for the shelter of the trees; it just needed ants attacking the sandwiches during the first half to complete the cliché. Afterwards we caught a care ferry across Windermere – or perhaps another lake, even mum seemed confused by the layout sometimes and she was navigating – in what looked suspiciously like sunshine.

Our next destination was Beatrix Potter's former house – no doubt we'll be digging up the bones of Wainwright and Wordsworth later in the week. (Although Wainwright's ashes were apparently scattered all over Haystacks, something which made me determined to never climb the mountain again.) I wasn't enthusiastic about this and, hey, I was right. The house itself was nice enough, a trim and well-proportioned structure albeit covered with the sort of quaint ambience you'd expect. Unfortunately they've recreated the traditional lighting inside, a nice idea but it meant you could barely see a damn thing. One semi-visible exhibit I enjoyed was a publisher's letter accepting one of Potter's stories – 'Wee Little Fairy Boots' or something' but rejecting several others. Reasons given were that they were "not topical" or "obviously a children's story", suggesting that Wee Little Fairy Boots was a sophisticated modern satire. Drove an adventurous route back, along roads inundated by flood waters and up the lunatic haul to the Kirkstone Pass. Stopped for a few minutes there, parents trying to find ravens/peregrines/some other damn tweety thing, me staring at the grim black clouds lapping at the cliffs about twenty feet above.

I sprung out like a jack-in-the-box almost as soon as we got home to climb some, if not all, of Plaice Fell on my own. The usual wonderful views soon emerged; the head of Ullswater at one end of Patterdale, squat and rectangular Brothers Water at the other, a patchwork of dry stone walled fields in between, the Helvellyn valley beyond managing to be both bright and deluged. To climb Plaice Fell you toil across the hillside, over assorted gushing streams in this weather, reach a damp little gap in between two peaks and wonder what to do. I headed left for the summit, feeling a little silly climbing a mountain in the late afternoon but muttering over and over "You don't need a reason to climb a mountain, you need a reason not to climb one." Then the rain started, I had my reason and so turned round. This may be a reason I mention over and over in this diary.

Lake District - June 30th

In the absence of any more snide articles about David Cameron or religious fundementalism, or any desire to write them just now, I'm descending into the most despised area of all blogging. Namely, publishing my holiday diary to a vast audience who don't care one bit. The question 'have I no shame' has finally been answered.

Patterdale 2007

Right then. The family holiday is in the Lake District this year. Which isn't as epoch-making as it would once have been because we did the same last year. Same family members, same part of the world, same valley, even the same damn house. Only I was too lazy to write a diary then, so this one will have some semblance of originality. The house is called Broad Howe, a whopping great early 20th century micro-mansion with all sorts of unexpected chambers and a kitchen big enough for a banquet. It allegedly stands on land owned by Wordsworth, who planned to build on the plot but couldn't be arsed, though I'm not convinced by that rumour. The trio of Wordsworth, Wainwright and Beatrix Potter loom over the Lakes like Titans and all roads must lead to them. (There may have been a mixed metaphor in there). The valley is Patterdale, which stands at the head of Ullswater. It's absurdly picturesque, particularly where we are. The slopes of Plaice Fell, which I climbed last year and fully intend to climb again, rear up behind us. An anonymous but impressive nodule dominates the view across the valley. Striding Edge would be visible just beyond if the cloud wasn't so low, which it always damn well is. Strange that when you come back to a place there's all these details you'd forgotten but recall when you see again. The little lumps just outside the gardens, for example, the tree trying with insane if admirable determination to grow on top of a rock. I do, however, remember the streams of sodden walkers trudging past the gates with grim expressions; and remember the feeling of smug relief that I'm not them.

Set off from with mum and dad from York about 10-ish. It's quite a short drive, though took longer than expected due to most of the road network apparently being replaced. Had coffee at Scotch Corner, at a Moto enlivened by a vast Geordie hen party. Turned westwards across the Pennines, the scenery getting more impressive. And grim – as I've hinted, the weather today alternated between heavy showers and light showers. More is forecasted and, what with the recent floods, Peter yesterday advised be to get onto the highest peak and start gathering two of every animal. First to hand would apparently be llamas and Highland cattle, which seem to have appeared in a great multitude across the northern English countryside. Had lunch in a particularly heavy monsoon close to one of the various half-derelict castles which lurk around here. Later stopped at Penrith, a sort of junior market town, to do some shopping. I took against Penrith actually, though on reflection that was solely because somebody had turned the signs to the toilets around. Still, prejudices have to come from somewhere; and it is a miserable little hole. Got our first views of Ullswater shortly afterwards, which is always nice to see. It's admirably basic, a big, grim and largely empty slab of water with cliffs running almost straight down to the water's edge. We drove along the sliver of land wide enough for a road, stopped for tea at an aggressively quaint café at a National Trust place, saw a lunatic swimming the lake without a wetsuit, stopped yet again at a tourist/walking resort to solve the Great Potato Crisis. (Which I'm really not going to relate here). Amazingly, our next stop was actually our last. My sister Christine and her twin daughters Emily and Gemma were already there. Christine's husband Gav, their eldest Lorna, my uncle Bill and my Grandad rolled up not long after. The twins, being about two and a half are remarkably mobile these days, more so than most of the rest of us. Though they're still young enough to be amused by silly faces; luckily as that's pretty much the only string to my bow. Especially since the Roaring Game, as practiced with both them and Lorna, was vetoed by mum and anyway seems to be knackering my throat.

Yet More Pointless Self-Indulgence!

Until I think of something worthwhile to write about, a first XI of my all time favourite football players. Bear in mind that I only really started watching in 1990 and only feel a strong bond towards people I've actually seen play. No doubt Pele and Alfredo di Stefano were better than, say, Matt le Tissier, but I've only got other people's word on that.

Goal
Dean Kiely
I was always going to be hopelessly partisan somewhere so I might as well get it over with. Kiely was part of the triumvirate of great York City players who took us from the depths of the fourth tier to near the top of the third in the early 1990's, knocking Man Utd and Everton out of the League Cup for good measure. (Jon McCarthy and Paul Barnes were the other two titans, incidentally). The big clubs were always sniffing around him but he somehow got sold to Bury, revealing a chronic lack of ambition by both us and him. He did eventually get to the Premiership, a key member of the Charlton side who punched above its weight for many seasons. In truth, Kiely was never the greatest keeper in the land. He had to pretend to be Irish just to get some caps and even they rarely used him. It's telling, though, how quickly Charlton declined after Alan Curbishley lost faith in him and flogged him to Portsmouth. What's happened to York since his departure, meanwhile, is far too painful to relate here.

Full Backs
Cafu
A marked contrast to his long-term full back partner, the flashy and useless Roberto Carlos. Rather than showboating Cafu simply worked his flank tirelessly; always skilful, sometimes dangerous but never forgetting he was part of the team. He was actually rather better at supplying his strikers with crosses than protecting his own goal. You don't want your Brazilians to be too defensive, though, and better managers like Phil Scholari could adjust to their full backs effectively being wingers in disguise. Cafu played in three consecutive World Cup finals, winning two of them. After his final one, in 2002, he was literally put on a pedestal and showered with thousands of origami swans. And why not?

Paulo Maldini
Emerged in the late 1980s as an assured, stylish and handsome star. Absurdly he's still around today, and preparing to play in yet another Champions League final, albeit somewhat slower and a little less handsome. Maldini epitomises all the virtues of Italian football, the qualities we wished it would show all the time: elegance, astuteness, composure on and off the ball. He won a bucket-load of trophies at Milan and God knows how many Best Groomed awards. The only blemish in his record is a poor showing at most international tournaments. His worst was probably 1998, probably because Italy were managed by Cesare Maldini. Little Paulo had to endure the worst nightmare of all grown up men: getting yelled at from the touchlines by his dad in front of all his mates.

Central Defence
Franco Baresi
Maldini's defensive ally for Milan and Italy for many years but, in some respects, his total opposite. Baresi had a lined, pock-marked face straight from the Middle Ages, possibly a Pieter Brueghel painting of carousing peasants. And he could represent the dark side of Italian football. He wasn't thuggish and certainly not theatrical. But if he wanted to stop an attacker then that attacker would get stopped, by whatever means available. Often a glower alone was enough to make people pause. In the early 1990's, there were few sights on a football field more terrifying than Franco Baresi in a strop.

Des Walker
Some central defenders are praised for their passing and composure on the ball. Which is fine, but not what they're paid for. They're there to protect their goal; and few could do it better than Walker in his prime. "You'll never beat Des Walker" the Nottingham Forest fans sung in the late 1980's and early 90's, a period which also included England's surprising appearance in a World Cup semi finals. He had a single-minded approach to his role, doubtless fostered by Brian Clough screaming at him whenever he dared cross the half-way line. But he wasn't dirty, able to rely on his anticipation and phenomenal pace. Sadly the second half of his career, after he left Forest, was a disappointment. Opponents of Sampdoria and Sheffield Wednesday found they could now beat Des Walker with relative ease. Still, as my friend once said, he was always just a few inches of hair away from looking exactly like Jimi Hendrix.

Midfield
Zvonimir Boban
Boban's biography would be as much a recent history of the Balkans as anything. In 1989 he entered Zagreb folklore by aiming a dropkick at a Serbian policeman when a Dinamo-Red Star match turned into anarchy. Then followed years of international exile thanks to the civil war which that riot heralded. Finally he emerged, no longer a Yugoslav but part of a new entity called Croatia. And he was a key part of the Croatian side which romped to the 1998 World Cup semi finals, as much a nationalistic campaign as a sporting one. Not necessarily all praiseworthy. But Croatia were admirable in their bloody-minded determination to make the world respect them. Also in the way they achieved this through sporting brilliance rather than just tiresome aggro. Boban was the most technically gifted of the bunch, a wonderful passer who liked to lurk dangerously behind his strikers. He did good service for Milan for years too, ironically forming a fine partnership with the Serb Savicevic. Nowadays Croatia have lost all the fervour of a new nation and never get anywhere.

Matthew le Tissier
A wonderful anachronism in the 1990's. He stayed loyal to one club his whole career, the relatively humble Southampton. He played football out of a dream rather than a coaching manual. And in an era of muscular pretty boys he was laid-back, often overweight and always hideously ugly. The much-derided Alan Ball found the best way to handle le Tissier; just give him the ball as much as possible and let him get on with it. The result was a stream of brilliant individual goals – some so good they were almost farcical – and a generally mediocre Southampton side consistently finishing high up in the league. England, of course, messed it up. Le Tissier was always played out of position and scapegoated at the first opportunity. As a result, he only won nine caps and we always exited tournaments early. He departed with a typical fairytale flourish, however. Southampton's last ever game at The Dell, and who comes off the bench to score the winner in the last ever game of his career? Well, it was never going to be Francis Benali.

Georghe Hagi
The 'Maradona of the Carpathians' first caught my eye when Romania faced Argentina in the 1990 World Cup. Not only did he have a great nickname, he comprehensively outplayed the original Maradona. Hagi remained at the centre of a string of stylish Romanian sides over the next decade. He was a standard midfield genius really, capable of orchestrating his whole team and opening up the meanest defence with an inspired pass or bendy free kick. Oddly enough, his brilliance only really showed at international level. Another fine tournament would lead to another move to a big club. Hagi would soon fall out with his employers and get kicked out to somewhere like Brescia. Then the next tournament came around… The one exception was his Indian summer at Galatasaray, who he inspired to the 2000 UEFA Cup. He got sent off in the final, mind you, but that was mainly due to the theatrics of 'Honest' Tony Adams

Stephen Gerrard
Only just got onto this list, with two factors counting against him. His protracted struggles against temptation whenever Chelsea make an offer; and his poor showing at international level. But so far he's always resisted the evil West London-Siberian alliance in the end. And if his failures for England are genuine, he can at least claim the excuse of ten team-mates under-performing alongside him. In a Liverpool shirt, Gerrard can be phenomenal. He's capable of destroying the opposition through sheer force of will. The cup finals against West Ham and Milan epitomised his value; a belligerent determination to triumph which dragged his whole side forward. There's also something endearingly juvenile about his constant runs into the box, his attempts to do almost everything. Watching his workrate makes me think that some modern players deserve, if not their full salaries – who the hell does? – then perhaps a tenth of them at least.

Attack
Hristo Stoichkov
Think 'Bulgarian' and you probably picture somebody poor, humble, inconsequential. Then you've got Stoichkov. A petulant, brutish bully, he had explosive pace and a phenomenal shot but often just seemed to terrorise defenders into getting out of his way. He swaggered into the highly impressive Barcelona side of the 1990's. With Romario alongside him and Johan Cruyff in charge, it's a miracle that even the Nou Camp was large enough to accommodate their egos. Stoichkov also led Bulgaria to the semi-finals of the 1994 World Cup. En route they knocked out Germany in one of the most emotionally satisfying games I've ever seen; definitive proof that classic Teutonic arrogance had been surpassed by new egos from the East.

Gabriel Batistuta
Unlike Stoichkov, and unlike Maradona who he replaced in Argentinean hearts, Batistuta wasn't about attitude or politics. He was about goals, basically. And he scored a phenomenal number of them from an absurd range of angles. He didn't dribble through whole defences like Henry or Weah, but nor was he simply a goal-hanger. Just give him the ball a reasonable distance out and he'd probably score, however implausible this appeared. My favourite of his was for Fiorentina against Argentina. Batistuta receives the ball but the angle is tight, there's no immediate danger. A second later, Arsenal are a goal down and heading out of the Champions League. And off the field, despite looking like a rather bad rock star, 'The Archangel Gabriel' lived up to his name. (Though presumably didn't tell any virgins that they were pregnant with Our Saviour.) Sadly his trophy chest remained rather empty, thanks to his loyalty to Fiorentina and playing for various Argentinean sides never quite as good as they first appeared.

Substitutes from: Oliver Kahn, for being the goalkeeper I should have chosen rather than Dean Bloody Kiely. Marco Materazzi, for scoring in the 2006 World Cup final, scoring in the penalty shootout, having a shot cleared off the line and getting headbutted by Zidane (but otherwise enjoying a quiet game). Ronaldinho, for being both brilliant and the most butt-ugly marketing icon in history. Zinedine Zidane, as Ronaldinho but read 'second most butt-ugly marketing icon in history'. George Weah, for being a wonderful individualist who actually wanted the job of running a basket-case like Liberia (even if the Liberians didn't want him.) Oliver Neuville, for looking and sometimes playing like a frustrated insurance salesman in a Billy Wilder satire. Roberto Baggio, for being the tragic hero of 1994 and the only man ever to get away with wearing a ponytail. And so and so on…

Stomach Churning

Another reason for friendly bombs to fall on Slough. Masterfoods, makers of Mars, Snickers and Twix amongst others, have started introducing rennet into their products. Rennet is made, charmingly enough, from cows' stomachs. Some cheeses have it too, some prefer a vegetarian substitute. When the latter is used it makes absolutely no difference to taste or texture. But now, for no good reason, you can't be a vegetarian and eat a bloody Snickers.

As I've probably mentioned before, I despair of capitalism sometimes. Not because of it's greed or callousness – it's supposed to be those things – but because of it's incompetence. We live in an age of targeted marketing and saturation-bombing advertising and zippy-zappy internet techniques to get us to buy things. And why bother? When a huge company just fiddles with its recepies to exclude millions of people from its potential market.

In Masterfoods' defence, they don't seem to fully understand the issue. A spokesman said only "extremely strict vegetarians" would be repelled while "a less strict vegetarian should be fine." Now, look. Not eating stomachs isn't just a stance taken by the fundamentalists. It's not on a par with only consuming fruit which has fallen naturally from the tree. Not eating stomachs is pretty much at the heart of the matter. Oh, and in case you were wondering, we don't eat hearts either.

I think Masterfoods have taken Dylan Moran's line a little too seriously: "I'm a vegetarian but I'm not a hardcore one. I mean, I eat meat."

The Subcomandante and the Siren

Why do writers of romantic and erotic fiction do it? Surely even a job at Burger King would be less miserable. Grinding out tale after tale of unlikely and generally undesirable liaisons between gimlet-eyed men and feisty but sweet-hearted women. Some authors are single mothers, I suppose, tied to their homes by their children; some pensioners likewise by their infirmities. And a few are Latin American revolutionaries trying to support the struggle of an indigenous people against an unjust social system.

Like Subcomandante Marcos, leader of the Zapatista revolt in Mexico's Chiapas region. Famous for sporting a quirky balaclava-and-pipe combo, he's got a new book coming out soon. It won't be Mexico's answer to Das Capital. With endearing honesty he admits his motives and adds, "There's no politics in the text this time. Just sex." The Colombian guerrillas sell cocaine to fund their rebellion. This seems a healthier option. Well, more or less healthier, all things considered.

I assume Marcos is using an assumed name on the book cover – or rather, another assumed name. He's a man rather protective of his identity. And 'The Princess and the Pauper by Subcomandante Marcos' doesn't really have the right ring to it. Which raises the intriguing question – is he the first to come up with this idea? Or are some of your Isabella Heavingbosoms and Otto von Shagathons also courageous rebel leaders in disguise? I'd like to think so. Though, of course, others, maybe be supporting less worthy causes. There may be neo-Nazis and genetic cleansers paying the troops by writing of fiery but forbidden love. Defenders of copyright are always telling us that bootleg films and albums often support hardcore criminal activities. The same warnings should go through your mind the next time you consider buying a Mills & Boon.

Giant Heads In Vases

How good exactly is the new Doctor Who? That was one of those hypothetical questions. The only answer any sane man can give is 'extremely'. Its inventiveness, humour and unabashed absurdity make it the best light entertainment show the BBC has produced for years. The best anyone has, almost. It's not quite at the level of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the Hamlet of far-fetched drama, but sometimes it comes close.

Last week's episode, for example. This addressed one of my regular complaints – that the Tardis rarely bothers leaving Earth, or even London, anymore. Well, it kind of did. The strange planet it landed on was actually New Earth. Specifically, of course, New New York (or Really New York or something like that). It's a start, I suppose.

Incredibly New York, You Don't Get Newer Than This, has a problem, naturally. Remember all those clichéd sci-fi cities with rocket cars whizzing joyfully through the sky? Forget it here. The rocket cars are all stuck solid in a three dimensional subterranean gridlock. Whole lives can be spent travelling two miles on the motorway. Actually reaching your destination – well, that concept's so implausible that few even contemplate it. Instead the Promised Land has become the motorway fast lane where, legends say, you can almost reach 30 mph.

Unfortunately the legends also say that monsters live in the fast lane and these ones are true. Specifically, giant crab type things which live off the billowing clouds of exhaust fumes. It's not explained why they also attack cars but, well, they're monsters aren't they? And there's worst. There are no destinations any more. All of New Earth has been wiped out by a mutant happy drug. The only power left is supplied by a giant head in a vase and his catwoman attendant. (And this is why I keep banging on about Doctor Who; I can't over-emphasise how much pleasure I got from writing those last two sentences.) All there's left is the motorway.

That's one of the great things about the series. It takes a fairly obvious piece of satire and then turns it on its head. The remnants of a civilisation survive precisely because they're in a permanent gridlock. The motorway has saved them. And, by extension, cars are good. Which other wannabe fashionable show would have the nerve to say that nowadays?

There's parts of it that are less good. Forty five minutes is still too short for a whole story. In particular I'd have liked to find more out about these people stuck permanently in their cars. Not why some were half-cats – a surreal touch better for its lack of explanation. But why they were all so patient. There was no cussing or honking of horns. They even broke off occasionally to sing hymns. It certainly distinguished them from the motorists of old New York. Or even, for that matter, Really Dead Old York.

I've also still got misgivings about David Tennant as the Doctor. At times he attempts Christopher Ecclestone's intensity, at others he goes for a Tom Baker-esque eccentricity. Really, though, he's just a slightly more interesting Peter Davison. And as it's biologically impossible to be less interesting than Peter Davison, that isn't saying much. Freema Agyeman, despite being remarkably attractive, isn't my favourite either. She's settled in quickly but only by making herself a Billie Piper clone. It seems that for the foreseeable future all of the Doctor's assistants will be bright, brassy Cockney girls; just as they always used to be simpering things only good for screaming.

Side issues, however. Doctors and their assistants come and go. The series will remain great as long as there's Russell T Davies' scripts, funny, inventive and never quite going where you expect. Plus, of course, giant heads in vases and their catwoman attendants.

This Our Manifesto

The exceedingly weak joke made at the end of the last post and all the fuss made over what's-his-name's code of conduct for blogs – you know, the one who keeps getting himself photographed holding a hammer looking really, really hard – has made me think about this blog. Not rules for it as such but an ethos, an underlying meaning. After all it's been going for over a year, with over 70 posts now and about 2 semi-regular readers. (One being my mum.) What, condensed, are the messages I am trying to say?

After skimming through past posts, I think I am conveying 5 central points to the world:

1. Art is nice
2. Capitalism is nasty
3. George Bush – booooo!
4. The kids are all right
5. God exists (probably)

And of course the central point, one which unites most blogs throughout the world:

I have slightly too much free time

Freedom!

Just spent the last three days in hospital. To be specific: fastened to a machine in a solitary hospital room, a camera following my every move and a microphone capturing every sound. About twenty electrodes were superglued to my head, another four selloped to my temples and shoulders. I wasn't allowed to leave the room throughout. I did leave it once, in fact, storming out on Tuesday after a dispute with the nurses far too lengthy and dull to relate here. But I returned quickly and otherwise I was good. All this was a test to find out why my brain keeps going wrong, basically; if I really do have epilepsy or if I have to tear up that membership badge and join a far more exclusive club. Or so they said. As these hospital tests get increasingly baroque, I'm getting the feeling that they've just given up and are messing with me.

I've yet to learn the results, thanks partly to leaving the hospital a day earlier than I probably should. However, you always learn some things from these experiences. Here are a few of my reflections:

Nurses are genuinely nice. All of them, without exception. The ones on Ward 38 of York District Hospital at least. Or rather, nice to your face – I overheard one, forgetting that my room was opposite the nurses' station, slagging me off to her colleagues. But I'd been a stroppy bugger just before and, in her place, I'd have said a lot worst.

Staying in hospital is embarrassing if you're not sick. And you're not sick really if you have my level of epilepsy. (Or whatever the hell it is). You have a few periods of lying helpless and twitching, and the rest of the time you're fine. So it's awkward when nurses, due to aforementioned niceness, are forever popping in to pour you glasses of water or adjust your bed. They probably get affronted too when you keep telling them you can do it all yourself. And then they slag you off behind your back.

Always being on camera makes you want to do terrible things. Rubbing my genitals in my case, I'm afraid. It was a constant temptation whenever I was lying on the bed. And it's not something I want to do normally – I'm lying on my bed right now and I don't feel the urge at all. Perhaps it was just a need to shock and get away with it. If I'd given in – and I didn't once, I'm glad to say – and been confront ed about it, I could just have yelled "There's something wrong with my brain! Why do you think I'm here?"

Hospital cleaners have a different status to other cleaners. Whenever I see them in offices or hotels or wherever, I feel sorry for them. They're doing a rubbish job for little money. Whenever I saw the woman who cleaned my room, I envied her. After all, she wasn't hooked to a bloody machine with fifty wires glued to her bloody head.

Hospital rules can be a little rigid. When they finally unplugged me, they sent a porter with a wheelchair to take me to the room where my wires would be removed. I told him I really didn't need a wheelchair. He replied that if sent with one, he had to push his target back in it "in case something happened." So if you saw a youngish man being wheeled through the corridors today, don't feel sorry for him. The look of acute embarrassment I wore wasn't the product of mental disorder. I was just embarrassed.

I smoke because I like to. I was a bit apprehensive about all those cigarette-free days, of course. As it turned out I coped absolutely fine, thanks in part to some seriously out-of-date nicotine gum pinched from my dad. And when I stepped off hospital grounds today, I instantly lit up. It was lovely; and so is the cigarette I'm smoking right now.

Freedom is wonderful, especially when abused. Upon getting home, after washing half a gallon of glue out of my head, I popped to a nearby shop for a minor purchase. Then I popped to another nearby shop for another minor purchase. Then I popped to yet another nearby shop for yet another minor purchase. Just because I could.

Being in hospital turns you into a self-obsessed narcissist. All the fussing over you, all the questions about yourself… it's natural, I think. This my excuse for lapsing into archetypal blog territory right now. Back soon, I promise, to dissecting trivial stories in The Guardian and musing on paintings I know nothing about.

Betrayals

The Easter story has always been the best in the Bible. There is, as mentioned below, death and rebirth. There's blood and sacrifice and suffering and blood. There's a great deal of blood, in fact. It's no wonder that Mel Gibson, in his Passion of the Christ, was able to make a previously unseen link between the Gospels and Quentin Tarentino.

More importantly the Easter story also has a wide range of human actions. Mostly of the worst kind. There's the fickleness of crowds, the feebleness of conciliatory politicians. There are crises of faith everywhere. There's even a crisis of faith from the son of God, for heaven's sake; an astonishing passage even in a text which breaks many rules of what you should do when establishing a new religion. Above all else, there are betrayals. Judas', of course. Even though Jeffrey Archer is currently peddling line, I still believe that Judas has been slightly harshly treated by posterity. He was basically a cipher after all, taking Jesus to a death which was necessary for human salvation. Besides, Judas wasn't alone. Everyone let Jesus down ultimately.

The Easter story has also inspired the best art. There are some decent images of Jesus' birth. But all painters of the Nativity succumb, to one degree or another, to an impulse known as "Ooooh, it's a liddle baby!" This sort of tweeness isn't possible in the cynicism leading up to the Crucifixion, the brutality of the event and the miracle afterwards. Pieter Brugel lashed out at the crowds in The Procession To Calvary, his astonishing depiction of the Crucifixion treated as a Sunday outing. (Pontificated on in more detail in an earlier posting.) Caravaggio played to his strengths too, showing a dark and disturbing Flagellation Of Christ by two satanic guards. Blood is missing from Andrea Mantegna's painting but only because it's all already drained from The Dead Christ; Jesus is as grey as a crypt, four gruesome holes in his body. There isn't, in fact, much optimism in most of the Easter paintings. The focus is on what we lost, not on what we've supposedly gained.

Especially in one of the defining images, Leonardo's The Last Supper. The last stage in Jesus' fatalistic trudge towards his death. The painting captures perfectly the poignancy of the event; and it anticipates the betrayals to come. Leonardo was superb at the precisely ordered group portrait and here it becomes more than an academic demonstration. Jesus sits at the head of the table and the centre of the picture, surrounded by his disciples. He sits alone, however. Those nearest him are leaning or even recoiling away. The ones on the fringes are staring at him, gossiping amongst themselves; but nobody is addressing him directly. He has lost them and he knows this. His face downturned, he spreads his hands out hopelessly. Jesus seems to be asking, what more can I do for you? Die for them – and Leonardo paints this as if it means he's failed.

It's a very human story, the Easter one. There's no constant interaction with a booming voice from the heavens. There's just a religious leader, a little too perfect for his or any other time. One who's betrayed and finally, torn apart by pain, seems to lose his own faith. It's a tragic tale too, the triumph of malice and avarice, and sometimes the Resurrection almost feels like a happy ending tacked on rather artificially. That's not the proper interpretation, I know, but maybe it's an excusable one. Because we do betray our saints and we do excuse our crooks. (Hello Mr Archer and pass on my regards to your new best mate, the Pope.) We do fail because of pettiness or greed or cowardice. We do it all the time and that's probably why somebody had to get himself nailed to a cross to redeem us.

All Your Easter Eggs In One Basket

It was just a story heard in a pub so I'm not sure if it's true. I'd like to think so, however. A supermarket recently claimed we had forgotten the true meaning of Easter eggs. They symbolise the rebirth of Christ, apparently. And so, by extension, buying and gorging mounds of chocolate at this time of year is our holy duty. Actual Christians complained about this so loudly that the supermarket was forced to apologise.

We thought that they weren't creative enough. They could have said, for example, that the crucifix was actually oval shaped. Or perhaps Jesus himself was. Why stop, too, with appropriating eggs? Take the Easter Bunny, for example. Perhaps this came about because when Christ rose from the tomb, he hop-hoppity-hopped away from it.

Of course eggs and bunnies aren't Christian images. They are pagan ones, just like holly and mistletoe and fir trees. There was a festival at springtime and another in midwinter long before Christianity emerged. They were linked directly to the seasons and their symbols reflect this. The winter ones are reassurances, plants which remain green when everything else has died. In spring comes a celebration, images of life and rebirth. The eggs are obvious, a more direct and less gooey substitute for the womb. The Easter bunny began as the March hare, which was rather mystifyingly given great significance by the old religions. The two are linked, incidentally; it was believed that hares hatched from eggs. Which were laid by lapwings, it seems, on the basis that both creatures live in fields. Clear logic was something else yet to appear in these societies.

It's obvious why the early Christian church appropriated the old festivals. The missionaries were doing a selling job. They wanted to give people something clearly recognisable and which didn't interfere with their pleasures too much. The Nativity didn't quite fit with the old solstice festival but did offer a cause for a straightforward celebration, something always needed in the middle of a grim winter. The Easter story, meanwhile, is perfect for spring. At its heart is death and rebirth. Jesus falls, lies in a tomb and rises again. You can take that, on one level, as a metaphor for the crops withering in autumn and miraculously springing to life again when the seasons change.

There are some Christians who don't like this. Now they've got the old festivals, they want to strip the last remaining pagan symbols from them. Get the Christmas trees out of Christmas, the Easter eggs out of Easter. Let's focus on what really matters. This always strikes me as rather ungrateful, turning on your sponsors when you no longer need them. It's a peculiarly irreligious attitude too. After all, holy events aren't just ones which happened two thousand years ago to a narrow cast of characters. Look at other images of Easter: daffodils, blossom, fluffy chicks. They can be rather hard to take on a full stomach, but in their purest form they are symbols of life. Life suddenly bursting out, life at its most unexpected and glorious. And if you can't see the touch of God in these constant miracles, what exactly is the point in believing in Him?

Well Duh pt. 67

There's been two poll s recently which studied, as Basil Fawlty would say, the bleeding obvious. A couple of months ago, The Guardian discovered that parents didn't know what their teenage offspring get up to. Mums and dads seemed to assume their little angles were sharing cups of Horlicks and playing pinball at the youth club. Instead said angels were, of course, drinking, taking drugs and fornicating with each other. This week a poll of teachers announced that schoolchildren were influenced by what they saw on television. They especially liked repeating catchphrases, the more antisocial the better.

Well, to mimic a thousand American programs, duh. I'm not sure who conducts these surveys or why they don't use a simpler methodology called 'remembering their own childhoods.' Of course teenagers break the law and don't tell their parents. It's half of the essential teenage experience. (The other half being getting depressed and telling absolutely everyone about that). When asked if she knew what I used to get up to my mum replied, no, and she didn't want to either. May this attitude be passed down many generations.

And schools are awash with bad imitations of Catherine Tate and Little Britain today? I recall being swamped with equally dreadful ones of Mr T, Lenny Henry (in his early "Ohhhhh-Kaaayy" years) and Neil from The Young Ones. Children find something they like and mimic it. It's a natural habit and, as this post has oh-so-subtly demonstrated, not confined to the young. Anyway, what do teachers expect children to talk about amongst themselves? Their bloody maths homework?

I do, however, applaud them singling out Catherine Tate's snotty girl character for special criticism. The one with the phrase "Am I bovvered?" as the sole 'joke' in each and every sketch. I know somebody who repeats this often and gratuitously, to the dismay of all around him. That person is my sixty year old father, but that's beside the point. Ban it from our screens. Ban it now.

Widening The Gulf

So, let me se if I've correctly interpreted the stance of the British tabloids? It's morally repugnant for Iran to parade the fifteen captured British Navy personnel on television. And yet it's perfectly decent to splash pictures from that broadcast all over your front pages? Thus causing the families of the sailors, especially of Faye Turney who seems to be made the star of the show, considerably more distress?

Of course, the hypocrisies of the British media are being dwarfed by others. It's OK to patrol the waters of a country you illegally invaded on the whim of America – as long as you stay out of the waters of a country you're merely about to invade on the whim of America? Mohammed said women in public must cover their heads, but would have nothing to say about a woman being displayed as a trophy of a war that's not even started yet? It's a squalid affair and getting worst each day. And, whatever occurred in the Shatt al-Arab waterway last week, it should have been over by now. The diplomats ought to have sorted it out between themselves, quietly and behind the curtains. That's what they're there for. But Blair blundered in, strutting about in front of the EU leaders. So Ahmadinejad had to start blundering and strutting in response. Two weak men mainly held up by bluster, and they've quickly reduced it to the level of the playground. "They were in my waters." "No, they were in my waters" etc. And trapped in the middle are the only real innocents; because whichever bloody waters they were in, they would only have been there because they were sent.

However this mess resolves itself, Ahmadinejad is likely to regret it. It's unlikely to start a war on it's own. Britain isn't Israel. We don't care enough about our soldiers to fight for them. But it's got the blood of the tabloids up. They didn't care much hitherto about Iran building nuclear reactors or funding Hizbullah or any other tricky issues. Humiliating a young British woman though – that they can understand. Ahmadinejad is already being manoeuvred into the role of Brutal Arabian Dictator which was forcibly vacated by Saddam Hussein. That his name is hard to spell and even trickier to pun with could cause problems. The fact that he was actually elected could cause some qualms too, albeit rather less. That shouldn't stop the journalists, however. When they want to make someone a folk devil they usually get the job done. With the headline "Who do you think you are kidding Mr Ahmadinejad?" The Sun has already begun the Hitler comparisons.

Why should Ahmadinejad care about this? Because it will make the task of selling an Iranian war to the British public considerably easier. The one honest reason for invading Iraq, after all, was "Saddam is nasty." And a real tabloid clamour may even push a British government into attacking. Blair has always capitulated to the newspapers on all major issues sooner or later. David Cameron goes even further, making the improvement of his image his sole consistent policy. The capture of one boat won't start a war, but suddenly it feels like the build-up to one.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I saw Rick Witter on Friday night. It was a bit dispiriting. You may recall Rick Witter: former schoolmate of mine, former lead singer of Shed Seven, former pop star. He wasn't on stage when I saw him. He was just having a drink in the Punchbowl, a smart but not especially fashionable pub in York city centre. Nor did the place exactly erupt when he walked in. The only people who seemed to recognise him were me and my friend; and that's just because we went to school with him.

"He's keeping it real," my friend suggested. But I've never been in favour of celebrities doing this. Like royalty and football players, they have a template they should adhere to. When Witter goes out on a Friday night, he ought to step large. He should be sniffing coke in a London nightclub, berating his agent who's angling to book him a place on Celebrity Big Brother. Not having a drink in places like the Punchbowl in provincial little York, along with the rest of us tossers.

The more depressing thought is that maybe Witter has no choice nowadays. It's been a while since Shed Seven split up, I know, and his new band don't seem to be going anywhere. I'd always assumed, though, that he was still lit up by the half-glow of former celebrities, still getting a few invites and bookings. Maybe not. His life might have become an arc so perfect that even Hollywood screenwriters would reject it as unrealistic. And he's back precisely where he started, the point most of us never left anyway, wondering if his years of chart stardom were just a dream.