Jesus survived the crucifixion, fled to Kashmir, lived to be 80 and is buried in Srinigar, where his tomb, under the same roof as the tomb of a much later Muslim holy man, is still venerated- though no-one seems to get terribly excited about it.

In Kashmir they remember him as Nas Asuf- meaning the Healer.

That's what they told me on TV last night. Wow.

So I Googled. The tomb is for real. And it contains a burial oriented east-west, which is the Jewish standard, rather than north-south, which is the Muslim standard.

It also contains an odd little carving of Nas Asuf's feet. The feet have marks on them which the easily-persuaded interpret as the scars of crucifixion.

So?

There the trail runs into the sand. We have traditions of Jesus (Isa) having visited India and studied Buddhism, but they are either oral or based on documents that have disappeared (rather in the manner of Joseph Smith's golden tablets.) The prime propagators of the legend were a nineteenth century Russian adventurer and a nineteenth century Muslim bloke who set himself up as the Messiah- dodgy characters, both of them.

I get a strong whiff of theosophical nuttiness.

But the story isn't utterly implausible. People did survive crucifixion, there were established trade routes between the eastern Roman Empire and Northern India, and there's a tradition that the people of Kashmir are descended from the Jews who were carted off into exile by the Assyrians- and didn't Jesus say he had a mission to preach to the "lost sheep of the house of Israel"?

A simple way forward would be to dig up Nas Asuf and have a look at his hands and feet. But that would be sacrilege. And consider all the vested interests...

It's not going to happen, is it?

A whole bunch of 20th century writers converted to catholicism. One of the first to jump was G.K. Chesterton; one of the last was Muriel Spark (who has just died).

The attractions of Rome (I've felt them myself) are antiquity, infallibility and art.

It's lonely being an intellectual in an age of collapsing certainties. You feel the need for something to snuggle up to.

Some Daddy or other.

Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Franco...

At least the Pope's a gentleman; he has Michelangelos on the wall.

Religion is corrosive stuff.

This is the time of year when the Jews bang on about the seven plagues of Egypt and Christians bang on about a God who was crucified.

Violence, smiting, dead babies, torture, betrayal, death, vengeance; our lot against your lot.

We got saved and you didn't.

Like the tipping over of a barrel full of toxic waste.

Acid reflux.

Things I've tried on at one time or another:

Charismatic Christianity
Ultramontanism
Anglo-Catholicism
Liberal Protestantism
Anarchism
Revolutionary Socialism
Hippy Idealism
New Age Mysticism
Wicca
Celtic Paganism
Classical Paganism
Zen Buddhism
Atheism
Agnosticism
Spiritualism
Theosophy

I grew out of them all.

But I still have them in my wardrobe.

You may have gathered I have problems with evangelical Christianity.

But yesterday afternoon we were watching an Open University video about how 18th century evangelicals- people like the Wesleys and John Newton and the poet William Cowper and the bluestocking Hannah More and, above all, William Wilberforce- spear-headed the fight against the slave trade. These people were passionate humanitarians and immensely brave.

Their spiritual descendants include the likes of Pat Robertson. I'm trying to get my head round this and it's a struggle.

The Winter Solstice has been THE big seasonal festival in the Northern hemisphere since prehistoric times.

Stands to reason: This is when the sun starts coming back. Who wouldn't want to celebrate?

Very few of the trimmings of Christmas are specifically Christian. Fir trees, holly, mistletoe, fat beardy men in fur-coats, reindeer- not many of any of these were to be found in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem in the good old days of Caesar Augustus.

The early Church worked on the sound principle "if you can't beat 'em join 'em". Finding they couldn't stop people decking their halls with boughs of holly, the fathers co-opted the festival by declaring it the birthday of their own Sun-god.

Cool.

Come on in, Jesus, and meet the gang. The guy in the mask is Horus and that's Dionysus presiding over the punch-bowl and the Japanese lady in the shiny dress is Amaterasu.....

I spent longer than was healthy on Deathclock yesterday. I return with a message for you all- we're doomed, I tell you, doomed.

William Holden slipped on his bedside rug, hit his head on the bedside table, tried to phone for help then passed out. Because of his reclusive habits he wasn't found until four days later, by which time he was maggoty.

Chris Farley, that funny fat man, spent his last hours in the company of a hooker taking lots and lots of drugs. When he collapsed on the floor she thought, "about time too", took some pictures to show her grandchildren and left. Trouble is, he never got up again.

Benny Hill, that other funny fat man, fell asleep in his chair in front of the TV. Like Holden he was a recluse.....

But after a while these stories lose their impact. Yes, he died and the worms ate him- tell me something I don't know.

I think about death quite a lot these days- I guess I always did- but then it was all gothicky shrouds and scythes and happening to somebody else; now it's personal.

I'm not afraid. Not really. A little nervous perhaps, like in the dentist's waiting-room. Pass me that magazine...

Because I'm really, really curious about what happens next...

So life is short and death undignified but the question you have to ask yourself is, "have I found this excursion to the earth plane interesting?" Because if you can answer "yes" to that- as Holden, Farley and Hill all could- then I reckon you've cracked it.

Yesterday was one of those days when all the things there are to worry about ganged up on me and made me feel physically sick, so I went out and took a walk in the park with my camera. It was a beautiful, slightly hazy afternoon (photos to follow.) About halfway round I was struck with the feeling that this self I happen to be at the moment isn't the real me at all. The real me is someone entirely other.  Untouchable. Outside of time. Amused. For a little while I was so closely identified with this larger self that I was looking down at the everyday me as if it were a rumpled suit of clothes and thinking, do I really have to slip back into that again?

Judy sent me an article about Pat Robertson's mining interests and how his charities stand to make money out of Katrina. I understand that the man's sailed pretty close to the wind in the past, mixing God's business with his own.

When I was studying the Bible the thing that really stood out for me (and made me feel extremely uncomfortable) was the bit about how hard it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I wasn't exactly rich back then, but I was comfortably middle-class and it gnawed at me that I wasn't poor enough to satisfy God. It was reading the Bible that made me a socialist (of sorts.) I didn't (and don't) see how a serious Christian can jump any other way.

You have to go through the Bible with a fine tooth-comb to find (debatable)texts condemning homosexuality, but the ones condemning the rich are lying about on the surface in plain view. The New Testament says that people who concentrate on obscure, fiddly bits of doctrine and miss the bleeding obvious, are "straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel." If Pat read the Bible as closely as he says he does he wouldn't be mining diamonds. He really wouldn't. A wealthy evangelist- it's a contradiction in terms.

Omar Bakri Mohammed- Islamic firebrand and loudmouth- has buggered off to Lebanon rather than risk being arrested here in Britain on a charge of treason. Fine. But just because he's no longer under our noses doesn't mean that he'll no longer be a risk and a nuisance. In the age of the internet and EasyJet travel a person's geographical location matters very little. Bakri Mohammed can still access us and his British followers can still access him. The change is purely cosmetic.

Peter Preston was saying yesterday that we're not laughing enough at the preachers of Jihad. We should be using humour as a weapon to deflate them. I guess the fear of being thought racist is what holds us back. But Omar Bakri- a very fat man who waddles- is surely good for a laugh. And then there's that other guy with the glass eye and the hook. And what about the robes and turbans? They're there to suggest spiritual authority- just like the Archbishop of Canterbury's mitre or the Pope's white frock. I think it's time we put aside our scruples and pointed out how silly they look.