Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Monday 15/10/2001

The weekend was glorious fun. It saw your correspondent zoom off to Wales with a couple of pals for a little R&R (details not to be revealed). As we hurtled down the M4, we realised that we were a Moslem, a Jew and a Christian (all thoroughly lapsed). Sounded like the intro to a joke, but it got the conversation going.

"I drink, I smoke, I live with my girlfriend, don't pray and haven't been in a mosque for ages' said Islamic Pal. "I used to think I was a very, very bad Moslem. But after 11 September I realised I'm a very, very good one!" We agreed wholeheartedly -- raising a glass later to Blake's aphorism that the road of excess leads to the palace of Wisdom.

Or, in our case, Port Talbot.

It's a start.