Alan Taylor's week

What's all that about? You could understand it if, say, the JG stood for Jemima Goering, but Mr Ballard was James Graham, which if not memorable is hardly cringe-worthy. Women writers like initials because they can pass themselves off as men, goodness knows why. Perhaps those who prefer initials to their names believe it adds lustre, gravitas and mystery to their work. Who can tell. It is something, however, that prospective parents should consider before naming their offspring.

According to Mr Ballard's agent he was a "global brand". He was also "a cult novelist". Are the two compatible? Discuss. Very few authors, especially ones worth reading, methinks, are global brands. Agatha Christie is one; Ian Fleming another. Ditto Stephen King, Dan Brown and John Grisham. You will note that none of them hides behind their initials. I believe I may have stumbled here on something of stupendous significance.

TUESDAY

MY dear, devout friend, Muriel Armstrong, acting editor of Amen Only, aka Life And Work, the throbbing organ of the Kirk, has caused a stushie in her valedictory issue by suggesting that fellow proddies should learn to hug homoyouknowwhats, especially if they wear dog collars. One such is the Rev Scott Rennie, below, who is due soon to inhabit the pulpit at Queen's Cross Church in Aberdeen.

Apparently, he is "openly" gay or "practising". For what, no-one says. I prefer "active".

Not every member of the Rev Rennie's prospective flock is happy to have him as their meenister; a minority is agin him and will have their say at the Kirk's annual pow-wow next month. In her editorial, Ms Muriel argued that: "Those who swear by the anti-homosexual laws in the Book Of Leviticus wouldn't publicly advocate slavery or stoning a woman taken in adultery. They presumably no longer accept biblical teaching on sexual matters such as polygamy and sex with slaves?" How delicious is that "presumably"? If my acquaintance with the Kirk is anything to go by polygamy and sex with slaves are generally accepted, if hard to source.

Ms Muriel's bigger point is that just because the Bible advocates something it does not mean we should follow it. In bygone times, for example, the Bible was used by bigoted dunderheids to argue in favour of slavery. Indeed, it is possible to use that book to argue almost anything, from veganism to fox-hunting, thrusting weans up chimneys to the existence of Santa Claus. Clearly, a new edition is needed. Might Jakey Rowling be persuaded to embrace the challenge?

WEDNESDAY

SOMEONE looking spookily like Irn Broon has turned up on the internet to make an announcement about EmPees' expenses. Gullible to a fault, the media has swallowed the story whole and accepted that the goon actually is Broon who, in the middle of the worst economic crisis since Wallace Mercer ran Hearts, is seen smiling like a loon who's just harvested a bumper crop of tumshies.

If - and it's a very big if - it was indeed Broon then it is surely time to call in the chaps with the white coats and the straitjackets. He smiles then he disnae, as if someone's tickling his feet while he's chuntering. At the mere mention of the name Sir Christopher Kelly, chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, he grins like a slice of melon.

Then he twitches and squirms and wriggles as if he's being smothered by a cloud of midges. His eyebrows go up and down like a Page Three doxy's top. In short, he looks stark raving bonkers. Or drunk. Or drugged. Or hypnotised. Then he fades away as if he was never there in the first place. Not good.

THURSDAY

TO Gomorrah - aka London - for the premiere of State Of Play, a movie, in which Russell Thrush plays a hack with scruples and Dame Helen Mirren is his "ruthless" editor. My dear friend Dame Helen, 64-24-64 sans garments, appeared in a figure-hugging dress which co-ordinated with her coiffeur and showed off her "enviable" ( Daily Wail) curves, prompting predictable palpitations from pathetic members of the male population. According to the movie's Scots director, Kevin Macdonald: "Helen's very sexy and authoritative and is brilliant when she's giving Russell a telling off."

Be that as it may, some dopey twerps have still seen fit to question the authenticity of her casting as a newspaper editor. Has there ever in living memory, they demand, been an editor remotely like her? I think I am in a unique position to counter that implied calumny, having served under many editors, albeit few of them with "enviable" bits and pieces. It is, of course, a myth that editors lack glamour. In my greener days in this inky business, editors were what one might term ironically anti-fashion. Most wore cardigans, some with designer holes at the elbow. Harris tweed was their cloth of choice which, after years in a smoky environment had the whiff of a peat bog. The tea-coloured stains on their flannels - let's not go there! - were worn as proudly as a duellist's scars.

One editor of a Sunday newspaper for whom I had the pleasure to toil used to fall asleep with his head in his dinner plate. This was before he'd started eating. Needless to say, such anti-social behaviour is the stuff of legend today. Take my own dear editor, who is a pillar of Troon society. He may not have the "enviable" curves of Dame Helen but he cuts an impressive figure as he bustles down Sauchiehall Boulevard in garb purchased from Asda's exclusive George range. Verily, he is a style icon.

FRIDAY

A rag is running a diverting correspondence about unusual museums. The best so far is the German Cement Museum in Slemmestad, wherever that is. Germany, probably. However, for those interested in cement - tell me someone who isn't! - it's surely a must-see. For a while I considered compiling a book of weird and wonderful museums. My personal favourite is the Museo Criminale Medioevale in San Gimignano in Tuscany, which translates as the torture museum. For some reason it is not mentioned in my guidebook, perhaps because it does not quite fit the Tuscan-idyll image.

Or perhaps because it is fit only for sick minds. All manner of horrible instruments are displayed, including something called The Pear, which was shoved into human orifices with dire consequences for the recipients. These included homoyouknowwhats, adultresses, heretics, blasphemers and those suspected of incest or "sexual union with Satan". It could have been worse. It could have been called The Pineapple.

SATURDAY

I am in Dublin, courtesy of Mr Ryanair, who flew me from Glasgow for £6.70. When I boasted of this bargain to a dear friend he cruelly trumped me. He had just booked a flight from Stansted to Seville for nowt - if, that is, you're prepared to overlook the airport charges.

Dublin, like the rest of Ireland, like us and Iceland, is in deep economic doo-doo. Horror stories of pints of Guinness costing 6 abound. When I heard this I shared the pain of the teller and predicted that it would have a terrible effect on Irish tourism, even though I don't drink Guinness and couldn't care less if it cost 10 times that amount. In fact, 4 seems about the going price depending, says my Stout Correspondent, on which side of the Liffey you order it on.

The Dublin of yore has evaporated. When first I visited it, in another millennium, folk kept horses in their kitchens and false teeth had yet to be introduced. Those were very gummy days. Floury spuds were the staple diet. If you got distracted while being served the waiter just kept piling them on until the plate cried out for mercy. Everyone drank like a camel. Once, the editor of a Dublin paper invited me to dine in what passed for a restaurant. At each of the guests' places was a bottle of firewater. This, it was explained, was to save the bother of repeatedly ordering bottles for the whole table. Guinness was ordered as a chaser.

I dined with another bunch of hacks. One surreptitiously ate another's starter. Vociferous complaints were made to the restaurateur who swore blinded blind that everyone had been catered for. Eventually the culprit coughed up. She'd eaten the two starters, she said, because the starterless person she was sitting next to was talking too much and wouldn't let her get a word in edgeways. In the Dublin Arts Club where I was staying a nonagenarian nymphomaniac asked if I'd like her to accompany me bedwards. When I declined, protesting I had a headache, she wasn't in the least put out. "If you don't ask, you don't get," she said, philosophically.

***

IN

Has there ever been a more horribilis annus for Gordon Ramsbottom, the foul-mouthed cook?

OUT

First he shares a secret packet of crisps with his alleged mistress, who he may or may not have been squeezing for seven years. Then, it's revealed that he's charging 11 quid for boil-in-the-bag fishcakes.

SHAKE IT ALL ABOUT

Now, none of his 10,342 grubberies has made it on to a list of the world's 50 best restaurants. Then again, neither - amazingly, mystifyingly, shockingly, unjustly - did Greggs.