Alan Taylor's week

By amazing coincidence, I have been watching Sissinghurst, a serial documentary about the castle and garden owned by Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West, the rampant homosexuals. It is now owned by the National Trust and day by day it is becoming more anodyne. My dear friend, Adam Nicolson, grandson of Harold and Vita, is allowed to live there with his family but he has become increasingly irked by the NT's labyrinthine bureaucracy and political correctness. I suspect the same pertains in its sister organisation. For example, Mr Nicolson could find no hint of his grandma's sapphic CV in Sissinghurst's exhibition. Nothing he could say could make the jobsworth in charge change her mind. And this, as Mr Nicolson gleefully reminded a quartet of female visitors, is the "Lesbian Headquarters of England".

TUESDAY SO adieu, my old chum Bert Hardy, who has shuffled off this mortal coil at the healthy age of 80. Not to be confused with Bert Hardy, the snapper, Bert was that most wonderful of beings, a newspaperman. Ink flowed in his veins and the sound of the presses rolling was Mozart to his lugs. By the time he and I collided he was in the twilight of a glorious career. It was he, for instance, who told Rupert Murdoch-Maniac to buy land at Wapping where, subsequently, the eponymous newspaper "revolution" was to be sited. In time, Bert and Rupe fell out, but, years later, Bert was invited by the rich dingo to join Sky TV. It was an offer Bert could refuse, and did, telling Rupe that he would lose everything if he went ahead with his barmy plan. Hmmm. Bert retired in 1994 but was tempted back to the coalface with an irresistible offer from the Barclay Twins, Pinky and Perky, who sent him north to run the Hootsmon, which is how we met. Accurately described by one obituarist as having "something of the pugilist" about him, Bert had what's called "presence".

One evening he rolled into my lair at the Hootsmon as Hitler's tanks did into Poland. I rose respectfully but he said that, in order properly to receive what he had to say, it would be better if I was sitting down. Was I about to be the recipient of a golden bullet? No, nothing as nice as that, he said. He wanted to be the first to tell me that he had appointed Andra Neil, the Sage of Paisley, as editor-in-chief of the paper. I cannot recall exactly what I said, but it was one word and consisted of four letters. Bert smiled. "I'll take that as a positive," he said, and ambled out, just managing to squeeze his broad shoulders through the doorway.

WEDNESDAY WHATEVER happened to the plan for a Scottish National Gallery of Photography? The simple answer is that it changed its name to the Hill & Adamson Collection. Who knows why? Possibly it was at the behest of a philanthropist or maybe it was a loopy idea of Shir Sean's, below, who is a patron of the scheme. The complicated one is that tens of thousands of pounds, not a few of them yours and mine, were spent to achieve nothing. So where are we at now? A board meets and discusses stuff. Nobody cares. One item on the agenda is whether to wrap the whole thing up. This seems a good idea before more dosh disappears down a drain. In its wisdom, however, the board decides to struggle on. Few will emerge from this debacle with their reputations enhanced. A perky councillor from North Lanarkshire - stop scoffing at the back - offered to take the photography gallery to Cumbernauld House. Alas, nothing came of it. A familiar story, I fear.

THURSDAY MY dear friend, Alex Salmond, says there will be no Great Britain football team at the London Olympics. He would rather there was a Team England, a Team Scotland, a Team Isle of Man and so on. I can see where he is coming from. He argues that if a composite team is allowed then it could spell the end of Scotland as an independent footballing nation. Some of us, sick to our stomachs at watching recent performances, feel this would be no bad thing.

For the Olympics, all other sports renounce their Scottishness. Why, then, not fitba? I fear the problem may not so much be to do with preserving the football team's independence and more about the lack of players with sufficient talent to compete for a place in Team GB. At present, our only player with half a chance of playing in such a team is Darren Fletcher, below. How did things reach such a pass?

FRIDAY Black Watch, the play, recently won a clutch of Olivier awards. Black Watch, the regiment, may have difficulty in doing likewise. A dear friend, travelling by train from Inverness to Edinburgh, was joined by a group of Afghanistan-bound squaddies from Fort George who didn't look old enough to be delivering papers.

Cheap lager was their aperitif, after which they moved on to Buckie. The effect on one squaddie was instantaneous and unpleasant.

He ricocheted up the carriage and used salty language, the like of which may be necessary in the face of the Taliban, but is inappropriate on the train. Words were exchanged between the squaddie and his girlfriend. Sweet nothings they were not. At Ladybank, both got off. The girlfriend screeched that her teddy-bear was still on the train. Gallantly, the squaddie leapt back on to retrieve it, whereupon the doors closed and the train trundled off. At Kirkcaldy, much the same thing happened, though, obviously, without the intervention of the girlfriend. As the train approached Haymarket, the squaddie was comatose. One of his companions called for back-up. The British Transport Police arrived and carted him off. Next up Osama Bin Liner.

SATURDAY WOULD you Adam and Eve it? Just as I am crossing the drawbridge of Chateau Taylor en route to the DumbLibs's spring conference in Glenshoogle, the social event of the millennium, I am told to return to base pronto. Perchance why? says I, ill-disguising my disappointment. It seems that an outbreak of mould has been discovered on a window frame and I must provide the elbow grease to deal with it. Thus yet again I fail to engage with the DumbLibs.

In this, however, I am not alone. Nick Clegg, above, leader of the UK DumbLibs, will not be in attendance either, having earlier taken the extreme precaution of knocking up his wife. Doubtless he believed this would provide him with the perfect alibi. Alas, Mrs Clegg gave birth early, which was very unhelpful of her. Nevertheless, Mr Clegg said he was prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice and stay at home to change nappies. Like leaping salmon, the other parties heaped scorn on the DumbLibs. Angus MacNeil, Gnat MSP for Na h-Eileanan an lar (I am not making this up), chuntered: "The Liberal Democrats are such an irrelevance that they have even been snubbed by their own leader." Laybore came up with something equally unfunny.

I fear, like my dear Green chum, Robin Harper, they may have got the wrong end of the stick. Aware that nobody cares a hoot about them, the DumbLibs have obviously decided to take the long view and start their recruiting in the womb. Eighteen years hence, I confidently predict, they will be a force to be reckoned with. Those who underestimate Clegg and his chums do so at their peril.

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IN Bill Gates, who is once again the world's richest man, even though he's $18 billion "poorer" this year compared to last.

OUT Anil Ambani, an Indian businessman, who has mislaid $31.9bn. To some, Mr Ambani is the full financial bhuna, to others - those who remember he tried to buy Newcastle United - a damp poppadum.

SHAKE IT ALL ABOUT National debt has reached an all-time high and still Alastair Darling says spend, spend, spend, though each of us is in hock to the sum of £30,000. What planet's he on?