Sunday

Inclement weather, so spend day reading JG Farrell's splendid novel Troubles, set in Ireland in the early days of the struggle for the Irish Free State. He also wrote The Siege of Krishnapur, an early Booker Prize winner, and Singapore Sling. Though they are fiction, they are also excellent history. Sadly, Farrell drowned in a fishing accident while pissed in Ireland. He was only 44, but it is a decent way to go.

It was on reading his description of the dilapidated Hotel Majestic that I remembered something similar in Ireland. I was staying in Sweeney's Hotel in Dungloe, Donegal, and had occasion to step down from my room on the way to the bottom bar. I opened a door to a room I hadn't noticed before. Inside there was a parlour with William Morris wallpaper. It was original William Morris wallpaper. All around was chintz, and a multitude of old photographs in tarnished silver frames. A dusty old pianoforte was spread with fern plants in Benares brass pots. On the wall was a large, signed sepia photograph of Count John McCormick, a silver salver containing a pot of freshly-made coffee, and a Sevres cup and saucer lay on an occasional table. Marie Celeste was not about. The room was a stage set from 1921, for heaven's sake. Frankly, I thought I'd made it up until a call came, suddenly in the early evening,

from my pal John Dougan over an unrelated matter. But it was he who was with me in that same Sweeney's Hotel back in 1977 when I had discovered the parlour. He confirms that it existed. That's a relief.

Monday

Open door to two sheriff officers representing our socialist bosses of the City Chambers. Am poinded for four bits of furniture at (pounds) 200, and am informed that my books, records, and word processor are exempt from the process because they are ''educational''. The new Huey Longs of the Corpy can have the furniture. I wish they had the education.

Tuesday

What a piece of impertinence from Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg, who dares to tell Scots that wur parliament is jolly good and we should be patient. As I remember it, she and her family were firmly against devolution in the first place. Now looking on at the toadies in Scottish politics, including the so-called Scot Nats, I am inclined to regret the damn thing myself. For once, I go along with Tommy Sheridan. But the tan still makes me laugh.

Wednesday

Off to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland which I much enjoy, from the cheery sight of drookit supporters of Pastor Jack Glass, who seem to be suggesting that the Mound has been taken over by out-and-out papists, to the platitudinous debates on sectarianism which was the major concern of this Church and Nation day.

One could hardly help but note that large numbers of the contributors were Rangers fans: they kept on confessing - if that's the appropriate word - to the circumstance. But there was a certain inverted triumphalism in the constant admission to shameful bigotry in the past. When the day comes that Catholics cease to see Celtic FC as some atavistic syndrome of their very own, I will be more than happy. There is a phenomenon among many educated Catholics called ''Uncle Tim'', in which papes fall over backwards to be fair to Rangers. Atheists such as myself are absolutely fair to Rangers and Celtic. We hold both in contempt.

Later liquid lunch (I'm the liquid luncher), with Ron Ferguson in the Jolly Judges. He was, until recently, the minister in St Magnus Cathedral in Orkney, which is quite lovely. But so is - not far away - one of the most affecting sacred sites in our islands, the Italian Chapel. My visit there was damn near enough to turn me into a Roman. The late Tom Winning told me, however, that

a fancy for architecture and sentiment was hardly the same as religious belief.

Thursday

Am considerably knackered by yesterday's excesses. For some reason, every time I encounter our religious people I end up taking the notion of transubstantiation into an over-abundance of Our Lord's blood. This is doubtless a horrid blasphemy on my part, but it is a reality. Why is it that the clergy seem to bring out a bibulous extremity in myself? Is it possible that I am drowning myself in wine because I can't do the same in belief? This is too difficult for me to answer, and all I can ask of my religious chums is that they pray for the redemption of my soul. Whatever that means.

Friday

Am rung up by Harry Reid, (whose recent book on the Church of Scotland, Outside Verdict, has been slated and admired in equal parts). He tells me that Life and Work, the Kirk's in-house magazine, is running a piece I wrote for it recently. There was a time when fellows like myself were more likely to be on the scolding stool than in their paper, but things have changed.

Receive application forms for two posts as a lecturer in journalism. Muse that I have never applied for a job in my life: I always knew somebody who could get me one. Am supposed to write out a curriculum vitae, but give up. I've been working for 42 years and have had 50-odd jobs, and some of them very odd indeed. I've written the CV as an article. Not all of it is fiction. It may as well be anyway. That'll get me the job.