3rd November 1998- Minnesota elects Jesse 'The Body' Ventura as Governor

Remember when Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected as Governor of California and put in charge of the 4th largest economy of the planet, that had somehow ended up being built on a fault in the Earth known as "God's Etch-a-Sketch"?  Weird, wasn't it? Weirder still was that, when Arnie was made 'The Governator' in 2003, he was actually the second man from the movie Predator to have held that role in a US state.  5 years earlier the great state of Minnesota, previously famous for having Prince live there, elected as Governor a former Navy SEAL who had no affiliation to the two main parties, spent a fraction of the money his opponents did, and suggested the possibility of legalising prostitution.  And who used to be a wrestler with a taste for Elton John shades and feather boas.  This guy...

This guy.

He was Jesse 'The Body' Ventura, who instantly gained more cachet than almost any politician by changing his nickname upon election to Jesse 'The Governing Body' Ventura.  That and the fact he'd been in Demolition Man.  He took a refreshingly earthy approach to issues as befitted a no-nonsense movie henchman; for instance he advocated gays in the military on the basis that, if he'd served alongside them in the Navy, he'd have had "less competition for women"- although to be fair he could be much more eloquent than that on the subject of gay rights.

Minnesota is a state with a history of progressive politics by American standards, not just for voting wrestlers into office, but also for things like education and having a strong Green Party, and it's likely that the voters were attracted to Ventura's stances; pro-same-sex-marriage, pro-choice, pro-marijuana and, a guaranteed vote winner this, pro-giving-budget-surpluses-back-to-the-people-by-sending-them-a-cheque-every-year.  All pretty cool.  And if that wasn't enough, they could always remember that he was this guy...

This guy

Naturally, the rest of the world had the sort of jealous laugh that comes with wanting to feel superior but actually wishing you were governed yourself by the man who played Captain Freedom in The Running Man.  Everyone was convinced that now a testosterone-fuelled wrestler was involved in American politics, he'd spend his time trying to punch all the oil out Alaska, fight the Taleban single-handed and insisting everyone at the UN speaks English and eats ribs.

As it turned out, he went on trade missions to China, advocated the lifting of sanctions on Cuba, opposed the Iraq war, spoke out against water-boarding and, incredibly for an American politician, publicly announced that he was atheist   And people listened to him, partially because of his ability to debate the issues and partially because of, well...

Ed Miliband's bumper sticker says
'Our party leader had watched more episodes
of Buffy than your party leader'

And then, he quit politics because, touchingly, he didn't like the intrusion upon his family life; although he still found time to record an advert criticising his former co-star Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Tragically, the ad didn't feature the two of them recreating their epic ruck in a spiked cage in The Running Man.  Intriguingly though, he's suggested that he'd be tempted to run as a third-party candidate for the White House in 2016.  We need to make this happen.

After all, with constant apocalyptic predictions of the world going to hell in a hand-cart very soon, it's probably for the best if we have a man in the hot seat who's already taken on Predator (admittedly he got killed but he'd be better prepared next time).  I know I'd feel safer if Ventura was occupying the White House when we finally all inevitably face Armageddon in the wake of financial meltdown, climate change, an asteroid, a killer virus, nanobots, starvation, aliens, a mummies curse, Triffids, trans-dimensional winged beasts or Earth being destroyed to make a bypass- Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy style

Of course, we needn't worry about all of those things.  Just the ones which have some sort of basis in immediate reality.  Like the financial meltdown. Or climate change.

Or a mummies' curse.

Coming tomorrow: A man unleashes a mummies' curse! 

2nd November 1960- The novel 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' found not guilty of obscenity

For those of you that don't know, Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence is the story of an upper-class woman who seeks solace from a cold, sexless marriage to a war-crippled husband by embarking on a torrid affair with his earthy gamekeeper.  So far, so Mills and Boon.  Except the book was actually taken to court (well, the publishers were) for being obscene and 'likely to corrupt', based on the fact that a) there's quite a lot of adulterous sex in it, b) Mellors, the gamekeeper, drops the f-bomb all the time, and c) he drops the c-bomb too.

Obviously, in the 21st Century, with the Fifty Shades series keeping the women of Britain up to speed with vanilla fetishism and cutting-edge sexual terminology, prosecuting a book because a Yorkshireman says 'fuck' while fondling a posh lady seems rather silly.  But back then, plenty of people seemed terrified enough that, upon contact with the book, the unwashed masses would immediately starting banging anything that moved while liberally sprinkling the air with as much cussing as they could muster up.

Obviously, this would only happen to poor people- who the prosecutor made it clear he was out to protect, ominously asking the jury if this was a book "you would wish your servant to read"; apparently on the misapprehension that he was holding court around the dinner table at Downton Abbey.  In fact, he often seemed less upset that the book features a few rampant accounts of sexual abandon, and more worried that Lady Chatterley had chosen to have them with a man who wasn't at the very least a Duke.

A book in court.  In 1960

Luckily, a number of learned witnesses defended the book, including the Bishop of Woolwich who suggested all Christians should read it; though he had to spoil the party somewhat by insisting this was to be done in a way that was "not instructional".  So by all means appreciate Lawrence's ability to depict the sexual act as a spiritual, almost sacred, thing- but strictly no picking up tips on how best to roger someone in a woodshed.

The subsequent clearing of the book meant that Britain began to usher in the permissive society that would eventually lead to all the drugs and free love which apparently everyone got up to in the 60s, in between wearing kaftans and listening to Donovan.  In fact, you could say that Lady Chatterley caused the decay in British society that the Daily Mail laments so much; which probably explains why, whenever anyone does a film or TV adaptation of the book, that paper tends to pour over the nude scenes in forensic detail out of sheer disgust.  Luckily, no such decline could be seen in Australia which not only continued to ban the book for many more years for being too saucy, but also banned a book on the trial as well.  This seems oddly litigious for a country where a 'libel' is usually just what you find on the side of a tin.

Getting back to adaptations of the book, Ken Russell did one for the BBC which starred Joely Richardson alongside Sean Bean's bottom, while there was a French version a few years back which is notable for featuring the superbly monickered actor Hippolyte Girardot.  The BBC version is of particular note to people of my age as it was screened when I was 12.  To a boy on the cusp of puberty, in those pre-internet days, the realisation that TV could be a portal to beam into my room unabashed lady parts and, what Simon Bates always used to call "sexual swearwords" on the BBFC classification inserts at the start of videos, was almost dizzying.

It was time for the annual barn dance at the
Borrowers Naturist camp

For men of my age, Joely Richardson romping through a meadow in the rain while, and let's not be coy about this, stark bollock naked, was what those a decade older must have felt whenever they saw Jenny Agutter go for that swim in Walkabout. And yet, did Lady Chatterley corrupt me, either as a book or a TV show?  Or course not.  Mind you, that was then.  Nowadays, a child rarely reaches their teens without having unfettered access to the internet's seemingly boundless supply of filth of every flavour.  Most 13 year old boys have an understanding of the inner workings of a woman which, until recently, would have required several years of medical training to achieve.

Is that corrupting?  Who knows.  Maybe.  But that's where we are just 50 years after a book nearly got banned for having some f-words and sex with a Yorkshireman in it.  Clearly, the world moves fast and the law hasn't bothered trying to keep up.

Maybe we need to be governed by someone tougher.  Some, I suppose, combination of a muscle-bound wrestler and an action hero.  That'd be a great idea, right?

Coming tomorrow- An American state chooses to be governed by a muscle-bound wrestler and action hero.

1st November 1512- Michaelangelo's painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is unveiled to the public

It was all happening this week in the 1510's wasn't it?

500 years ago today the people of Rome got to see what Michaelangelo had been up to while lying on scaffolding in a church for the last four years.  This is what constituted a long-awaited release by a major artist in the 16th Century.  Nowadays, the equivalent would be Avatar.  Isn't it weird what progress looks like sometimes?

The painting itself was on the ceiling of a new chapel in the Vatican, which had been called 'Sistine' after the pope who built it called 'Sixtus', which derives from the Greek word for 'polished'.  It's a shame he wasn't bigger on etymology otherwise he might have decided that a shiny surface was appropriate and installed a few mirrors up there instead, thereby beating to the chase by several years whoever it was that actually first got themselves a ceiling like that (my money's on Rod Stewart).

Anyway, 20 years after the chapel was built, the new Pope (Julius II- who I assume went to Eton) decided to get the ceiling painted and asked Michaelangelo a young sculptor from Florence- or California if you've seen Charlton Heston's staggering performance in The Agony and the Ecstasy- to do it.  This was even though Michaelangelo himself was busy at the time sculpting the pope's own tomb for whenever it was going to be needed.  The artist didn't want to do the ceiling and actually ran off to get away from Julius while the Pontiff was visiting France.  Not to preach sermons to football stadiums and kiss the tarmac at the airport, by the way; he was there to fight a war.  That's what popes did back then.  Which probably explains why they had their own tombs on standby.

Once the war was over, Michaelangelo caved and agreed to do the ceiling, probably on the basis that it's not too wise to say no to God's representative on Earth when he's just returned from battering the hell out of the neighbours.

And now he'd agreed to the work, he went to town on it.  That's why it took him four years- which it turned out was a little too long for French-hammering Pope Julius who threatened to throw Michaelangelo off his scaffolding if he didn't get a move on.  Try that next time you've got a painter and decorator round and see if you get a major piece of art out of it.  Even if you are the Holy Father.

There are 343 figures in this work.  344 if you count the
game of Where's Wally which was added in  1973

Once it was finished, Julius' mood probably didn't lighten up much as he held a mass to celebrate the public unveiling of the Michaelangelo's work on the roof.  Now, any Catholic will tell you that when the Pope's giving a mass, you pay attention.  And that's the case even with the modern, preachy, peaceful pontiffs, never mind the warmongering old fashioned ones like Julius who threaten to fling artists off a scaffolding when they're in bit of a tizz.  Yet when Julius tried to deliver his mass in the now-completed Sistine Chapel, he was confronted with a room full of gawping chins as everyone gazed up in the air at the naked people and God and angels and Noah and floods and Adam and Eve and prophets and a-cherub-giving-the-finger (there's one in there).

Luckily for Michaelangelo, Julius went and died within the year- probably having simply angered himself to death, and was replaced by Leo X- the first Pope to have a name that sounds like a Japanese children's cartoon character (except Pope Pikachu: 967-988AD).  He was mightily impressed with Michaelangelo's ceiling and asked him to do some work on the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence which the artist agreed to do, one assumes on the proviso that the new Pope didn't threaten to twat him with a mallet if he took his time.

Unfortunately, the work never got done as the Church was starting to run out of money- as it turns out that fighting wars and commissioning fabulous ceilings costs a bit of gravy.  Leo X needed to raise money fast and started selling absolution for sins to the wealthy of Europe in exchange for cold, hard cash.  This annoyed quite a few members of the church, including a monk in Germany.

His name was Martin Luther and he was sharpening his pencil...

31st October 1517- Martin Luther posts the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace Church

Most people are aware that the Protestant reformation started when Martin Luther pinned a list of complaints to a church in Germany, and was then given some forward momentum by Henry VIII wanting to sire a male heir by banging as much European royalty as possible.  This in turn lead to England being caught up in a bloody struggle between Protestants and Catholics, and pinging backwards and forwards between the two faiths with enough rapidity to make everyone's head spin- which wasn't actually a massive problem considering how many people were being burnt alive at the time.  Eventually it all settled down and Britain became a mostly Protestant country, except Ireland.  Where it all kicked off again and continued to do so for centuries more.  All because a man nailed a note to a door and we once had a dicking machine on the throne.

But did you know that this all started on Halloween?  Because that's when Martin Luther got busy with his quill and hammer and hacked a major schism in one of the dominant religions on the planet.  And this leads to an important question which ought to be addressed.

What if he was trick or treating?



Try as he might, Luther couldn't remember where he'd put that sock


Now, admittedly, Luther was 34 at the time he nailed up the 95 Theses but that's not to say he didn't turn up at the church with his kids, who'd really made an effort dressing as a mummy and a witch, and get miffed when the Priest told them to bugger off.  It's just that he went a bit far with the 'trick' bit and instead of getting his kids to go back and throw toilet paper over the altar he instead sat down, wrote a list, attached it to the door and hoodwinked the church into forming one of the world's major Christian denominations instead. I bet he was mortified when it all took off but, you know how it is when you commit to a joke that everyone takes seriously.  You can't turn round after a bit and say "I was only having a laugh" because everyone then thinks they look stupid.  And the priest at the Wittenberg Palace Church sounds like a miserable sod; after all, he didn't give Luther's kids any sweets (admittedly, a lot of this is conjecture but that doesn't stop me from insisting that it all definitely happened).

And if you think all this sounds a bit far-fetched, it's worth noting that Luther also ended up marrying a nun after he smuggled her out of a convent hidden in a barrel of herrings.

To be fair, I don't want to belittle people of faith too much because there's enough of that out there already.  The march of science, and in particular Richard Dawkins- a man who could suck all the fun out of a jelly fight on a bouncy castle- has led to anyone with a semblance of religious belief being treated like a reactionary, backward simpleton who shouldn't be trusted with scissors, never mind opinions.  This often stems from the rational minds of scientists who insist that it's ridiculous for anyone to believe a man in the sky is in charge of things, but also that it's perfectly fine that if something they thought of themselves doesn't work or can't be found, they can just add the word 'dark' to it and say that it's invisible.

I'm currently reading a book on quantum physics, because I desperately want to believe I'm much smarter than I actually am, and it's about as easy to sit through as a Chinese algebra lesson.  I'm currently being told to think of an electron as having a probability of existing at some point of a wave, as defined by a clock.  Now, I understand each of these individual concepts but hammering them all together in one place makes no sense and is faintly terrifying. It's the intellectual equivalent of the feelings engendered by eating a deep-fried Mars Bar.  And yet I'm being asked to believe it all, based on nothing more than the writings of scholars (although one of them is that lovely Brian Cox who spends a lot of time on the telly in exotic locations gazing through his fringe at the stars like he's never seen them before.  Which is a bit of a concern for a physicist).

Compare this picture to the Luther one.  Which of these two men
looks more likely to try and tell you he knows where to find God?

Imagine if, instead of his Theses, Luther had pinned a guide to quantum physics onto his local church instead.  Henry VIII would have had a lot more trouble trying to talk his way into divorcing and executing all those wives by insisting that light is both a particle and a wave.  Henry's kids wouldn't have easily been able to tear England back and forth between different interpretations of the existence of gravity by burning at the stake anyone who tried colliding atoms together at light speed.  Cromwell would have struggled to justify subjugating the Irish by claiming that the act of observation affects the thing being observed so it's impossible to know where an electron is at any given time.  Actually, thinking about it, things really would have been a whole lot more peaceful if it wasn't for Martin Luther. 

That man killed millions.

Just by writing a letter.

Now that is scary.  Happy Halloween everyone.

I bet you don't like politicians. I don't. They're so false, aren't they? Lying, cheating, swindeling, corrupt bastards the lot of them. Scum, wrapped in tosser, coated in idiot and wearing a suit. That's what you think of them isn't it? Well shame on you. Shame. Because that description of politicians I've just given- that's you that is.

Not all of the time, obviously. That's the difference between them and you. But, like every good politician, you at some point have popped on a nice suit and lied, cheated and swindled your arse off- like you're a raging diabetic and fibs are insulin. Or at least you have if you've ever had a job interview.

Job interviews are ridiculous things. Think about it, none of the important jobs ever have them do they? Optumus Prime never sat down in front of a committee of three Autobots in suits and interviewed for the top job did he? He never had to answer endless questions such as "Optumus, could you give us an example of when Unicron eating someone's planet has caused conflict with members of your team?" and he never had to do a role-play based on using the Autobot Matrix of Leadership to improve productivity in the fourth quarter.

However, if you want to do something trivial and unimportant, like working in a call centre, in a shop or as the England football manager, then you'll be familiar with the hell that is the interview process. In the latter case, the footballers you'll be in charge of will never have had an interview in their life- other than those conducted in front of a board of sponsors logos by a commentator armed with a microphone and platitudes- which probably explains why they're the way they are.

Think about it- most people nowadays find footballers to be about as trustworthy and wholesome as a Russian nuclear reactor, and with good reason, but they can't all be like that just because they have the ability to propel a sphere around some grass with a degree of accuracy. Maybe it's because they never have to look over their shoulder and worry about the next time that they're after a transfer and they have to tell their prospective employers a steaming pile of horse-poo about working in a team and having never had a sick-day since primary school.

That's my main bone of contention with modern footballers really- sure I envy the job and the money but what I'm really jealous of is the fact that they don't have to give a monkeys about anyone or anything beyond whatever they wish. And if you think that's a disgraceful attitude for them to have then I absolutely guarantee that if anyone reading this was to swap places with a Premiership footballer they'd be just as pampered, whiny, self-absorbed and mollycoddled as them within a fortnight. Admittedly, a large part of the population would hate you but who cares? I wouldn't. I only like people because it's easier and more practical than not liking people- if I had to count the number of people I unequivocally like in this world I'd struggle to reach double figures- but as a footballer I'd have far too much money and ego to bother with any of that.

By the way, everything I've just said about Premiership footballers can also be applied to Morrissey. And I bet he didn't have to have an interview to be a pop star either. That said, if things were to turn sour for Moz and he had to get a proper job and have an interview, wouldn't you love to be a fly on that wall?

Personally, I believe interviews and recruitment should be scrapped and replaced by a part-rotation, part-lottery system. The simple fact is that most people could probably do most jobs if they were given a chance. Some jobs which require a specific talent and which don't usually have an interview process, like pop star or poet laureate should still be filled in the current way but everything else should be assigned completely at random to everybody else. Then we could all do them for a year and have another lottery and another big swap around.

Imagine spending a year as a forensic detective then suddenly getting the call to spend 12 months feeding the chimps at Longleat. Then after than you could have a year on the bins before going on to be a tanker captain for Shell or a television bowls commentator- all assigned at random. Life would be so much more fun and exciting and I reckon anyone could pick up any new job in about three weeks if thrown in at the deep end. Plus no-one would ever know what they'd be earning in the next year so no-one could have a mortgage or invest in anything so financial crises like the one the world currently finds itself in would be impossible! We'd just have to live for today and make life up as we went along.

This system would certainly help me out as I currently find myself in an employment doom loop- basically, I need experience to get a lecturing job and I need a lecturing job to get experience. This, clearly, is a situation that could only exist in a world that doesn't work properly and makes a mockery of me spending a year getting my teaching qualification. If my system was imposed, I'd just have to take my chances and see what came up- which I wouldn't have a problem with as that would be the way of things- and if any of you out there became a lecturer then, trust me, you wouldn't need the qualification I wasted time and money getting. If you were good within two weeks, you'd be good for the rest of the year and love every minute of it- so much that you'd be the best educator your students ever have. And if you were rubbish after 2 weeks then, trust me, you'll always be rubbish but at least you'll know you've got less than a year left in the job.

And just think what it would do to politics! And sports! Football would definitely have to be brought into this system as then there'd be no more closed shop at the top of the Premiership as the players are randomly expelled and introduced to teams every 12 months. No two seasons would ever be alike as Chelsea, for instance, could go from a strong team one year to a squad entirely comprised of elderly, blind women the next- and who wouldn't want to see that?

Plus, with a bit of luck, I'd get the call to be a Premiership footballer myself. Then I could just stop caring.

Climbing mountains seems like bloody difficult work doesn't it? All that equipment, the bad weather, the thin air and the clothing which seems to come mostly in colours that are never found in nature and are instead invented in Japan. The calssic reason mountaineers give for clambering up various peaks is "because they're there", which as self-vindication goes is about as lode-numbingly stupid as eating flannels because they sound wet. But still they do it anyway. And if climbing common or garden mountains (though they rarely feature in commons or gardens) is hard enough, conquering Mount Everest must be, all things considering, a bit of a sticky wicket. It's nearly 30,000 ft up at the peak and at that height you can watch the in-flight movies on passing aeroplanes. And there's something even harder than hauling yourself up the tallest mountain in the world- and that's hauling yourself up the second biggest.

K2 is, in technical mountaineers' parlance, "a rum bugger". For a kick off, it's so remote that it doesn't even have a proper name- the 'K' merely refers to the Karakoram range in which it situated and the 2 is there because K1 already had a title. It's 'Masherbrum' if you're interested, which makes it sound like a real ale. Anyway, back to K2- though it could take a while to get back there as it needs a week of trecking just to get to it's base camp from the nearest village. After that, it's 28,000ft and then some to the top over all sort of crevices, spurs, ridges and other such things that Mother Nature designs primarily to kill idiots in Gore-Tex anoraks and cramp-ons. The bold statistics say that if four people make it to the top, one of them will die trying (descents are more dangerous than ascents- ask a mountaineer, they'll tell you).

Yes, all things considered, there can't be many more difficult pursuits in the world than calmbering up to the top of the 'Savage Mountain' (you can probably guess where it gets that nickname from). And yet, for the past few weeks and months, I've been doing something just as difficult, something just as uncompromisingly tough, something just as life-threateningly dangerous.

Nothing.

Doing sod all is, frankly, nails. Since I finished my PGCE course I've made an effort to get a summer job but, understandably, no-one was interested in employing me in the knowledge that come September I'd be heading back to education. Ironically enough, all Blackburn College's promises of work appear to have been empty platitudes and my return to lecturing has suffered the same fate as a quarter of the people who try to climb K2. The upshot of all this is that, since about mid-June, I've had absolutely nothing to do and it's nearly killed me.

Naturally, I started off with plenty of giddy excitement about what I'd be able to get done during these fallow months- but as Robbie Burns told us "the best laid plans of mice and men aft' gan' a'glay"; though I'm loathe to take any guidance from him as he could only make his poems scan by inventing new words. He was on to something here though as my best laid plans for this summer have been gannin' a'glay like nobody's business.

I wanted to tidy the flat and I just sat about as it got messier. I wanted to lose weight and I just sat about getting fat. I wanted to write something but I just sat around watching things someone else had written. I've elevated procrastonation to a somewhere between an artform and a science. If the chaps at CERN had put the same effort into quantum physics as I have to doing sod-all they'd not only have figured out what happened at the Big Bang, but also come up with a way to use it to paint pictures.

And when you do nothing with the same convinction and determination as I have, you tend to find yourself living on the edge. For a start off, the human brain needs stimulation and, if it doesn't get any, it'll go out and find it's own. Therefore, without the distractions of normal working life, a trickle of unguarded thoughts can easily be allowed to meander and build to the Angel Falls of acute psychosis and mental breakdown in about two weeks. Being without a job for the last three months means that I've gone way beyond this stage and can extrapolate a simple idea, like making a sandwich or a passing bus, into a carnival of nightmares in a microsecond. "Just imagine if this sandwich has e-coli in it. Or salmonella. Or SARS (remember that?). It could kill me stone dead. Or make me faint. Out of the window. Into the path of a passing bus. I'd better just have a packet of crisps. Oh dear, that Wotsit doesn't look orange enough. What if it has e-coli in it?". That's what my day has become. Like those staple science-fiction characters, usually with a beard and a croaky voice, who claim to be able to see all of space and time- that's what I've turned into. Though instead of space and time I can see all hells and terrors leading off from a single thought. I guess this must be what cabin fever is.

Then, to make things worse, I got a nosebleed. In fact, I got 3 nosebleeds in six weeks having gone 27 years without ever hanging a single one. Clearly my body had become bored of having nothing to do and decided to liven things up of it's own accord. Or the whirly-gig of horrifying images I'd conjured up from nearly dropping a glass that morning had sent my blood pressure so high that something had to give. Either way, I was worried so I spoke to the missus about it and, God bless her, she comforted me and told me it was probably nothing and that everything was going to fine but I should see the doctor just to be safe. Then she remembered that as well as being my girlfriend she's also a health care professional and pointed out, for some reason, that the nosebleeds could also be a sign of leukaemia.

You can probably be imagine how my cabin-fevered, nightmare-extrapolating, terrified and ill-distracted brain took that, can't you. Not very well- basically. I've got the doctor's appointment tomorrow where I'm not only convinced he'll tell me I've got leukaemia but also that it's a new special kind, that they're going to call 'Matt Taylor's Disease', that is extremely aggressive, excruciatingly painful and makes Ebola look like a coldsore. He'll tell me that my nosebleeds are the start of a torrent of nasal trauma that will soon develop into a regular stream of blood and then a torrent of liquified organs before my body turns itself inside out via my nostrils. He'll tell me that it's utterly incurable and so virulent it instantly transmits to everyone I simply glance at in the street. He'll tell me that it's too late, the infection has spread and that I've doomed the planet. Then he'll call me a "git".

Or maybe it won't be that bad. Maybe he'll just tell me I've got normal leukaemia and not a particularly virulent strain of 'Matt Taylor's Disease'. That won't be too bad as the survival rates for leaukaemia are now are around 9 in 10. So, essentially, it's more than twice as easy to survive as climbing K2.

And at least it'll give me something to do.

You'll no doubt now be aware that Team GB's perfromance (when did we get that Americanised name all of a sudden?) at this years Olympics is the best in a century. Pretty impressive but it looks like, in terms of historical context, we may have plateaued. While we're knocking on the door of 20 gold medals in Beijing with a few days to go, 1908 saw Great Britain collect a whopping 56 golds. By the end of those games, our entire team must have been blinged up like Snoop Dog in a particularly auspicious mood.

However, there's no reason to think that we couldn't match this staggering success next time- becuase the 1908 Olympics, like those of 2012 will be, took place in London. And, looking back at the old records, it appears the hosts took more than a few liberties with the events that were included in order to tip the balance in Blighty's favour. For instance, that old village fete favourite the tug of war made an appearance, as did rugby union though, intriguingly, the USA took the title and remain current Olympic champions in the sport- remember that for the pub quiz. The shooting events involved killing live deer like a typical country gent andt, best of all, we also included two ancient racket sports; one actually called 'rackets' and the other called 'real tennis', both of which were about as old as Henry VIII and had been for their entire histories played almost exclusively on these isles. We claimed gold, silver and bronze in both events which is hardly surpising as no-one from any other countries even bothered entering.

Clearly, the organisers of 1908 could show Seb Coe and friends how to go about throwing together an Olympics in four years time where Britannia can truly rule the waves. And the pool, the track, the velodrome and, just for the hell of it, the real tennis court (surely it's due a revival- there's still somewhere to play it at Hampton Court apparently). All we need to do is come up with a few events where the odds are stacked in favour of the British, though if we just start making queueing and binge drinking into Olympic sports the rest of the world might twig that we're up to something. Therefore, being a considerate chap, I've put together a few ways in which some existing sports could be tweaked to help out Team GB a little bit:



Swimming: All competitors have to start each race with a pint of Stella in a plastic glass which they must carry with them. While the race will still be timed, penalties will be incurred for the amount of beverage spilt (let's say- one second per 5ml) with the best overall time deciding the standings. Anyone who's seen a British man relaxing with a pint in a pool in a foreign hotel notice some teenage French girls playing volleyball in the deep end will surely have marvelled at his ability to front crawl over to them with his plastic glass between his teeth and not lose a single drop. Surely it's about time this discipline was given the opportunity to take to a bigger stage.

Athletics: For all running races, a newly constructed Primark will be placed at the finish line. When the starting gun goes, the store will open and begin advertising a sale. All British women will instantly be able to charge down the track at Mach 3 just to be first through the doors, though we may need to change the rules so that barging, punching and some stabbing is allowed.

Gymnastics: All falls and bad landings to be accomapnied by hilarious soundtrack of 'BOING!' noises and such like, in order to make everything more audience friendly. British competitors to be drawn entirely from winners of the Pride of Britain award- thereby creating invincible combination of slapstick and heart wrenching sob-stories with the winner of the event not to be decided by professional gymnastics judges but by a phone vote on Saturday night ITV hosted by Joe Pasquale and Fern Britten (note to organsiers- make sure Pasquale handles the funny noises and Britten does the sob-stories or it could all go a bit tits up)

Cycling: British team to just turn up as this is something we can actually give the whole world a good twatting in. That said, deciding that the event should be contested entirely by 16 year old chavs on BMX bikes designed for 9 year olds couldn't hurt.

Boxing: Venue switched to just outside the Adelphi Public House on Blackburn Boulevard. Glassing allowed.

Additional Note: All sports to be accompanied by a looping soundtrack of 'Run' by Snow Patrol and McFly songs played a three times normal speed.



There you go- just a few simple changes and suddenly we're cleaning up every gold medal in sight. However, there is one more thing we need to take care of- we need to stop the athletes shagging. At the Sydney and Athens Olympics, organisers supplied over 30,000 condoms to the visiting competitors and ran out by about a week into proceedings, whereas in Beijing not even a third of the total supply of sheaths has been used and we've nearly hit the fortnight mark. The only reason I can find to explain what happened is that in 2000 and 2004, all the Brits were busy banging their brains out rather than dealing with the sporting matters at hand. They were acting like typical Brits abroad really and I dare say that at those games the phrase 'silver medal' referred to a messy sexual aftermath rather than coming second (though it could have meant both if you think about it). This needs to be prevented from happening in London four years from now

The only way to achieve this spell of celebacy for Team GB would be, as far as I can tell, to get Sir David Beckham (as he probably will be by 2012) to tell the entire nation not to have sex for the total duration of the games. We'll all dutifully bow our heads at his Royal Right-Footedeness and go about our days with our fluids slowly building to dangerous levels. Then, when its all over and Britain has won 40,000 gold medals, we can all celebrate with a great big national shag.

On Saturday night ITV. Hosted by Joe Pasquale (for the funny noises) and Fern Britten (for the sob stories). Accompanied by a looping soundtrack of 'Run' by Snow Patrol and McFly songs played a three times normal speed.

COME ON BRITAIN!