Yesteday, Saturday, was the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt where an exhausted and outnumbered English army defeated a vastly larger mob of Frenchmen by the simple technique of shooting arrows at them. The English should have been massacred but weren't and the French should have been gloatingly triumphant but mostly finished up as dead or captured.

I mention this partly because a possible ancestor was there, well at least Mr.Shakeshaft mentions him in Henry V, and another of my favourite characters, Davy Gam Esquire. Unfortunately he didn't survive which is a great pity. Many years ago now I came upon a corner of a field somewhere deep in the Welsh Marches which had a small plaque stuck on a pole comemmorating the fact that this was once the house of the said Davy Gam Esq. Apparently he had rather a chequered history, but at least he died famous.

The French rugby team at least got their own back for Agincourt by beating Scotland in fine style and Wales played well to beat Italy. How ironic that after six hundred years such triumphs and defeats mean so much but perhaps in some immortal plan we are destined to compete for eternity. England play Tonga or Samoa tomorrow, I forget which. They should win but after Agincourt, anything is possible.

As for yours truly, I shall doubtless be glued to the television hurling insults at the referee and trying not to increase the blood pressure to apoplexy level.

And if as I suspect, Sunday will end with a family meal, then we will compare opinions on the various teams in which we have an interest and predict what is going to happen if they survive to compete again.

The writing progresses, if not apace, then with decent slowness. How odd to live in two parallel worlds and though I don't see myself as any kind of control freak, there are times when it is quite pleasant to swap realities for a few hours.

And as a parting shot, I read today that Elvis is the richest dead person and that John Trevolta is about to buy a Scottish castle to set up a Scientology base. Why does neither event fill me with unbounded joy?