1) Sneering at people and things in general, unless I already approve of them, and certainly at anyone who has anything to do with PR or the pastimes our society has created in the service of giving shoddy service, and especially those fools who think the internet will make them rich at the same time as it lets them stint on doing a proper job. Also, anyone who habitually watches ITV, people who eat Quality Street and the rather-too-plain-speaking dragons on Dragons' Den - though this often gives way to joining in with their sneers at the crackpots, dolts and dreamers who submit themselves to ridicule in pursuit of the loan of a bundle of twenties.
2) The 17th century, and more particularly 1603-1690, during which prolonged fistula convulsion the Stuarts came in as divine right monarchs of a united kingdom, were swept aside by Oliver Cromwell, came back to an era of unprecedented licentiousness, handed Britannica over to William of Orange (precipitating, incidentally, the start of life as it is to this day), and vanished as a serious force at the Battle of the Boyne. What a time to have lived - though I would reserve the right to a Being John Malkovich-type portal to return to the 21st century for clean water, lavatory paper and the other necessities of life - dentistry, the NHS and Marks & Spencer ham and egg salad submarine rolls. I should very much like Samuel Pepys to be my guide, though in the flesh rather than in literary form, William Hogarth - he just makes it by virtue of being born in 1697 though would have to be shifted back a couple of generations - to accompany me as expedition illustrator and Alan Clark, Old Etonian, diarist and wayward MP, to be resurrected as a drinking buddy for the journey.
3) Helen Willetts, alas no longer a BBC weather presenter but transfixing on account of her combination of raven-haired beauty and a degree in physics. Her televisual appearances reduced me to a mumbling wreck full of black-hearted lust - and my goodness wouldn't it be marvellous to be pushed around Hyde Park in a pram by her (although, to be honest, I'd make do with just being pushed around by her)? By extension I approve of imagination, fantasy, mental journeys of a personal and occasionally prurient nature and spending time in my own" attic".
4) Comedy surnames with a peculiarly English twist, such as Shufflebottom, Sidebottom, De'ath, O'nions, Bosomworth, Woolcock, Woodcock and Mycock. There will also always be a place in my heart for Bracegirdles, Snowdrops and Figgises. They are funny when read, funnier when said - the vowels and consonants inducing waves of pleasure in the mouth - but funniest when considered in their natural habitat, such as on the buildings of Shufflebottom and Jones, plumbers' merchants, near the railway station in Stoke, or outside Mycock the butcher in Buxton market square, or indeed in the persona of Frank Sidebottom. A peep of seaside postcard naughtiness and a liberal dollop of juvenilia.
5) Hobson's Choice, though it ought really to be David Lean's 1954 film rather than Harold Brighouse's 1915 "Lancashire comedy" for the stage. The film draws masterful performances from Charles Laughton as Hobson and John Mills as Will Mossop, his boot hand. The lines are immortal, even if most of the actors - save probably only for a very young Prunella Scales - have long gone. Lean thought of everything: incidental music, angles, stuff going on almost out of shot, comedy, tragedy, social portrayal, the portrayal of snobbery, drunkeness and redemption. I have watched it countless times and see something new every time, and I was never so happy as when I was presented with a DVD copy as a birthday gift last year.
6) Avoiding work, both in the house and at the office, where I would rather be doing this than turning a hand to the pile of redaction on my other screen. Skiving, dodging, swinging the lead and pulling a fast one, Mr Ink has in one sense left the building: these are all terms, concepts, in which I am more interested as I get older. I also approve of being middle-aged, having love handles, being bald, being ridiculous in almost every respect, having hairy ears, burping and farting and snoring and being a grump - though a self-deprecating one.
7) Earthly pleasures, though discussion of same will be restricted here to those encountered at the table and in the saloon bar. I will never be able to describe properly the delight, the sensations, of combining heated olive oil, chopped garlic, tomatoes, salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar and listening from the next room as those ingedients bubble in a pan, giving off wonderful odours. All the wine-writing flummery in the world never quite hits the spot in terms of describing taste sensations and how flavours develop and fade. Certain pubs and certain restaurants on certain occasions are the "best" place to be, invested with magic for just that time.And seven that nearly made it:
1) Radio 4.
2) Walking around the house nekid after showering.
3) Countryside and little towns.
4) Reading poetry out loud and sniggering while reading silently on the Underground.
5) Motor cars.
6) Most of the Irish and Scots, some of the Welsh, few of the English, lots of the French.
7) Plotting terrible ends for my ill-wishers.
