Jock rock shock

Visiting Edinburgh the other week I had the opportunity to see the Scottish Crown Jewels, including the Stone of Destiny, better known as the Stone of Scone.

The Scots are attached to their stones which made Edward I's decision to make off with the sacred Stone of Destiny as war loot in 1296 all the more spiteful. For good measure, he had it installed under the throne in Westminster Abbey.

After a 700-year interlude, the British Government decided finally that it should be returned to the Scots in 1996.

Now Alex Salmond, the Scottish First Minister, is casting doubts on its authenticity, suggesting the stone could be a fake. While there are plenty more stones in Scotland it is saddening to think that the one true stone may be somewhere else. Some think it never left Scotland - that Edward was duped by a hastily arranged substitute.

But if the real stone - on which the kings of Scotland had been crowned for 400 years - was not the stone taken to Westminster Abbey and upon which the Kings and Queens of England were crowned for 700 years, we're still talking about a substantially historical stone.

Of course, if that Westminster stone was a fake and its theft something of a sham, then it should probably belong back in England. On second thoughts, perhaps not. It only causes trouble.

The stone will be allowed back in England (the clause in the agreement allows a maximum of five days) for the coronation of the next monarch. And who will that be, I wonder? Tradition insists it should be Charles. But he might well be in to his 70s if the Queen is as long lived as her mother. One thing is certain: William will not have to wait as long as his father.

Rugby, Pride and a prelude to Lent

A big breakfast today ahead of the England v Wales game at Twickenham and the gallons of London Pride that must be consumed before and afterwards.

The ritual is generally the same - down to the pub for noon, a few pints then off to catch the bus in Richmond that takes us to the ground.

But today is different because the match does not start until 4.30 pm and this plays havoc with the pre-match drinking. Peak too early and you're watching the game in a daze.

Ticket cock-up

So we're starting at the pub at noon as usual but - and this is the new bit - we are going have lunch in an Italian restaurant and that may mean wine.

I'm hoping that the catastrophic ticket cock-up has been resolved. We source our tickets collectively through various reliable avenues but this year the northern supply was a bit thin. Still the southern end was holding up, but there was a misunderstanding between the poles and one of the core group of regulars looks as if he might miss out and that's very bad indeed.

It has happened before in away matches but I can't recall such an oversight at a home match.

Another brick...

If we get to the ground early enough we shall be able to see "the brick". The brick was sponsored by Simon, aka The Philanderer and has been inscribed by various nicknames. On this occasion, for obvious reasons mine is "Scoop." It's part of some wall they've built and this our small bid for imortallity (until they knock down the ground).

This will be my last drinking session before the start of Lent next week. But I can't give up drinking for Lent because of other intervening rugby internationals. So I'm trying to think of a suitable sacrifice. I might give up milk instead. Should be doable.

Postscript: In the end we were deluged with tickets, enough for me to take two sons, Rob and George (and subsidise them). The restaurant booking was a disaster since we all turned up 20 minutes late and, understandably, they had given away the table, so it was back to the pub. A 4.30 pm kick off was far too late. It meant that by the time the game has usually ended England were well in the lead. This might explain their eventual loss - their body clocks were all thrown and they forgot about the second half. Luckily after the match we managed to find a pub. Later, that same instinct that guides homing pigeons back to their lofts brought us home. Just two weeks to recover and it's over to Paris: bring on the French.

Kilmainham Gaol, Croke Park and rugby union

It's always good to go to Dublin for the Ireland v England match. This year was special because of a change in venue. Ireland's Lansdowne Road stadium is being refurbished so the fixture was taking place in Croke Park run by the Gaelic Athletic Association.

But Croke Park is not just any old stadium. It's a very well appointed modern venue, the third biggest sports stadium in Europe with a capacity of more than 82,000. Yet hitherto it has confined itself only to Gaelic sports such as the all-Ireland Gaelic football and hurling championships.

There is a reason for this since in 1920 Croke Park was witness to one of the most notorious events in Ireland's long struggle for independence. The ground had already achieved some symbolic significance in the use of rubble from buildings wrecked in the 1916 Easter rising to construct one of the terraces, thereafter known as Hill 16.

Bloody Sunday

Then, on Sunday, November 21, a Gaelic football match between Dublin and Tipperary was brutally interrupted when police auxiliaries entered the ground and began firing on the crowd. The police were responding to a co-ordinated series of killings that morning when agents working for the British military had been murdered by hit squads loyal to Michael Collins, the Irish Republican leader.

Whether or not the shooting was a deliberate act of reprisal, or whether it was triggered by a nervous response to shots, real or imagined, from somewhere in the panicking crowd, is still far from clear. But at the end of the shooting some 14 people: 13 spectators and one player, Michael Hogan, the Tipperary captain, were dead or dying. Confusion in the aftermath was very similar to that after the 1972 Bloody Sunday killings in Londonderry when members of the British Paratroop Regiment shot 13 people dead during a civil rights march.

Ancient history? Not in Ireland. There was a great deal of heated debate before the Croke Park administrators agreed to host the six nations rugby internationals. Some in the press had predicted crowd trouble. But only those who have no knowledge of rugby or its supporters would conceive of such nonsense.

I travelled over with six friends - seven of us and six tickets, not the ideal combination, but a better position than the group of twenty England supporters we met who had a single ticket. They wouldn't part with it to make their misery and our happiness complete. Irritatingly we had been covered for tickets but due to a mix up in communications a couple of tickets had been let go elsewhere.

At some stage we would need to draw straws. The last time it happened, some who had put tickets in to the kitty had lost out when the names were drawn out of a hat. This time there would be only one of us out of luck. Everyone had fingers crossed.

Firing squad

We spent the Saturday morning at Kilmainham Gaol where, in May, 1916, fifteen of those who had organised and led the Easter uprising were taken out in to the prison yard and shot by firing squad. One prisoner, James Connolly, dying from a serious leg injury that had turned gangrenous, was brought from his hospital bed and strapped to a chair before he was shot.

I can recommend the prison tour for those who seek to get a better understanding of the events surrounding the Irish rebellion. The story of the prison was harrowing enough without any need for embellishment by our tour guide, Ciaran, who delivered an excellent and even-handed narrative.

Walking to the ground - yes I was one of the lucky ones - we saw two men standing with a poster in memory of Michael Hogan. There was a delay before the British National Anthem as Mary McAleese, the Irish President, was shown to her seat. The press reported that the mainly Irish crowd was respectful of the National Anthem. That was an understatement. I saw some wearing the green who were singing God Save the Queen and at least one in front of me removed his cap - more than I managed to do.

There was near silence on the few occasions when Jonny Wilkinson kicked for goal. The rest of the time the home supporters were raising the roof as the Irish ran up an embarrassingly convincing win by a thirty point margin: 43-13.

Hen parties

As others have said, there is a new spirit in Ireland that may not have forgotten the past but which no longer feels weighed down by history. That's a good thing. The slightly sad aspect of this, however, is that the centre of Dublin on a Saturday night is a succession of hen and stag parties dominated by the alco-pop crowd whose appreciation of history extends to last night's TV.

The singing pubs and their singing clientele seem to be disappearing in the trendier parts of Dublin where gastro-pubs are beginning to compete with the drinking only bars. Our post match sing song was confined to the trip back to the suburbs on the Dart railway ahead of an early ferry the next day.

We always sing, win or lose, but after a loss like that we might have been excused if the chariots were not on fire that night.

Jonny Wilkinson discovers levitation

England v Scotland, Twickenham, 2007 : a match that will linger in the memory for those who follow the English Rugby Union team through thick and thin. There has been more thin than thick of late but this match made up for all those miserable performances in the last couple of years.

The pre-match preparations in Richmond were as intensive as ever. Early doors in the pub, money in the kitty, serious drinking then down to the bus, top deck, and the start of the singing, including a few Scottish anthems in tribute to the visitors.

This was the first game back in an English shirt at Twickenham for Jonny Wilkinson since he kicked the winning goal in the 2003 Rugby World Cup. Some of us wondered whether he would last the first half but as soon as we saw the familiar bum-jutting, leg-jiggling ritual ahead of his first penalty kick the memories came flooding back.

Wilkinson doesn't miss many kicks. His ability to put them over from the touchline and rack up the points gives confidence to forwards and backs alike. His tackling and positioning stiffens the line and this time his battered frame stood up to the punishment. New cap Andy Farrell still feeling his way at inside centre, must have been glad that there was someone to share the attention.

It wasn't just Wilkinson either. Jason Robinson was back and, even without too many of his trademark jinking runs, still managed to score two tries. But it was the strength and punch of Harry Ellis that had us talking after the match, that and Wilkinson's precision kicking. OK, he might not have quite mastered the art of levitation, as it seemed he had with his one-handed try in the corner, but he was walking on water as far as we were concerned.

Post match we always sing, win or lose, but this was one of the classic sing songs with everyone standing on their chairs in the pub singing, "We're climbing up the sunshine mountain." There's still a big mountain to climb before the World Cup but it's nice to enjoy some sunshine at last.

The Scots tested England with some penetrating kicks and two deserved tries but really there was only one team on the day. Ireland at Croke Park will be something else. England will need to play out of their socks to beat an experienced Irish side on their own patch. But if Wilkinson can stay injury free, and that's a big "if", anything can happen. A new season, a new coach and everything has changed.

Former coach, Andy Robinson, said he would not have played Wilkinson. Few would have criticised him for that. But sometimes - as new coach Brian Ashton might argue - sometimes you have to take risks and sometimes you just get lucky. Whatever happens for the rest of the season after this 42-20 win, this was one for the memories - the day that Jonny Wilkinson returned and all of us fortunate enough to have had a ticket will say: "I was there".

Gone in thirteen seconds

China fires a test missile in to space, destroying one of its weather satellites, a move with serious political and economic ramifications if it triggers a debate over extending the multi-billion dollar "son of star wars" missile defence programme; not to mention worries about increasing amounts of junk in space.

As a news story, however, it receives slightly less attention than Big Brother house evictions. As a political story in the UK it rates somewhat lower than the chancellor's hopes for national success on the football field.

But it's much easier for media commentators to pass a view on human relations and football than it is to say anything seemingly intelligent about the geopolitical implications of a Chinese missile test.

Besides, the China missile story does not allow us to indulge in what has become a favourite national pastime - watching people squirm.

So when Chancellor Gordon Brown said he wanted the World Cup in England in 2018 it was only natural that the Scottish-born soon-to-be Prime Minister of Britain would be asked which team he hoped would win it.

A well-briefed Brown would have smiled mischievously and said: "England v Scotland final, with the Scots nicking it 3-2 in the last minute of extra time." Everyone would have laughed and the agenda would have moved on to more important things.

But he fluffed it, saying he would be backing the host country, only changing his mind when he chose to temper his sensitivity to the West Lothian question with what most right-thinking people would accept as a reasonable national sporting sentiment - a Scot wanting a Scottish victory. So we watched the chancellor squirm and felt better about things because it wasn't any of us in the frame.

This celebration of the misfortunes of others extends far beyond Britain's borders. Bizarrely it earned a US chat show invitation for Midlothian barmaid Mairi Duncan, all because of her misfortune in one 13-second video clip taken 10 years ago. Who says you need 15 minutes of fame? Today it's measured in seconds.

A black day for England

A few years ago I was on the San Francisco waterfront outside the terminal where the tour boats take visitors to Alcatraz. If you have to beg - and quite a few people have to beg, even in San Francisco - this is the place to do it.

The San Francisco beggars are an enterprising bunch. I saw one chap at an intersection, his feet fastened to milk crates in order to get above the traffic, passing a child's fishing net in front of car windows in the hope of getting a few cents.

Down at the terminal one of the beggars was dressed in a cow suit. Round his neck hung a placard saying "I moo for cash".

There are echos of that placard as I start this blog (not a word I like) since I write for cash. It's how I make my living. Like the laughing policeman in a penny arcade you just show me the money and those words start spewing out. Yet here I am, four paragraphs into whatever this is, and every word you've read has been brought to you absolutely free. It's killing me.

So I don't want you to expect a work of art in these columns and please don't get shirty if you find the odd spelling mistake or grammatical error. Don't expect essays or long columns either. They're elsewhere on my website . No, I think this spot is going to be reserved for snippets: stuff about the work that I do, the way that I work, the way that I live, bits about my family, things that I'm thinking of, partly formed ideas, some general observations, maybe some quirky stuff and the odd snapshot.

Talking of snapshots, and seeing as this space is going to include some personal stuff, you might be interested in having a peep at my photography. Ignore the shopping basket symbols. Any picture can be downloaded freely by friends. But if you want to use them professionally in any way, then get in touch. I snap for cash.

Have you noticed how some days are good and some not so good, for no fault of our own? Today should have been great. The sun was shining. There was no sign of the heron that has been eating the fish in my pond. And yet there was something niggling away, something I couldn't quite articulate for myself until I saw Freddy Flintoff's picture on the front page of the Telegraph. That was it. We had lost the second test. It shouldn't have happened but it had. There must be cricket lovers all over England walking around underneath their personal little black clouds. Don't let anyone tell you it doesn't hurt when we lose like that. It really hurts. I have a friend, Charles, who is out there just now. He had to leave for the beach before the end of the first test, couldn't bear any more of it. God only knows how he's taken this one. Why do the English have to suffer for their sport? I suppose it could be have been worse had I been born a Scot. It's hard to raise the roof over Curling.