I have to admit that some days assaults on Hat Hill are more painful, in aftermath, than others.  Today was one of the more painful ones – the lurking arthritis savaging not only knees but ankles and thumbs as well.  Pity, as it was a glorious  autumn day with a kaleidoscope of colours amongst the trees – native beech, oak and horse chestnut, sprinkled with latter-day firs of a variety of origins, a brisk southerly wind and Mediterranean sunshine – a morning when you just feel lucky to be alive. Spaniel and Border were lustily rampaging amongst the rusting ferns and the remnants of the blackberry bushes lending a joy to the spirit.

Home again and a look at the papers and BBC “all day, every day 24 hour” news filled with Trades Unions trying to make a reasonable point and Government Ministers going through the ritual of hoping against hope that the Trade Unions will have forgotten that if something quacks and waddles with a large brown beak then it probably is the same rehashed deal put on the table.   The pursed faces of (dare you say it because someone did on BBC) Mrs Merkel and the newt faced Sarkozy winding up thier collective electorates before the deciding to mallet Papendreuou was all so predictable.  But the match fixing trial of the Pakistani cricketers has saddened me immeasurably.  Firstly because I love cricket.  I always have, I skivved off school when I was a lad, when we had the only TV in the street and watched the greats – Benaud bowling and batting, Trueman and “George” Statham  the doyens of English fast bowling, and of course the great spinners Johnny Wardle, Jim Laker and Tony Locke.  I got used to climbing out onto the roof to avoid my father on the rare occasions when he returned home for his lunch.  We played cricket incessantly in the school yard and I developed into a useful batsman and not so useful spin bowler.  It was always a joy – the rules were the rules; none of this football stuff and arguing with the ref – moan afterwards about the umpires cataracts or his family history of selective blindness but get on with it.  I even managed to educate intelligent females to the merits of the great game(although a hot summer in Hereford and Botham’s Ashes probably helped).  I even had a match called off because of incoming mortar fire in Cyprus.   The point is I know how much cricket is revered in the sub continent and the players they have produced.  I reckoned if cricket means as much to the population of Pakistan as it means to me then I would be a very unhappy and shamed guy tonight.

A lot of stuff is written about racism and multiculturalism in this country.  The particular slant being from whichever side of the political divide you come from.  Here is a sport that has demonstrably crossed the divide and become truly multi cultural.  And now they cheat at it – for a few tawdry pennies at least 3 young men will never ever play for their country again.  One of them made an impassioned speech of apology to the judge after he pleaded guilty, describing how proud he had been to pull on his Pakistan jersey and how he had wanted to sleep in it.  Just a laddie from a remote village in the Punjab.  But he cheated!  And so did the others – and the ones who were not caught – this time! And  they know the rules!

There have been 14 players caught match fixing or consorting with Bookies since 2000.  3 South Africans, 4 Indians, 1 Kenyan, 1 West Indian and 5 Pakistanis.  And some of those have had their bans overturned in local or district courts.  I have to believe that there is something not quite right there.  It brings the scandal of Bob Woolmers death flooding back and the allegations of ball tampering, while the pervasive odour of bookmakers and fixing lingers everywhere.

I could at this point simply say, as most commentators, that the IOC has a mammoth job to do, bearing in mind this was brought to a head by the News of the Screws. But this is the second reason for my sadness this afternoon, I see a darkness around the Pakistan, with allegations of involvement in Afghanistan against the American led coalition of forces.  The geography of Osama Bin Laden’s apprehension and death can scarcely be a coincidence and  rumours of  government collusion with terrorists in the death of Benazir Bhutto, remind us that Pakistan’s heritage is a bloody one.  The involvement of British born Pakistanis in terrorist attacks in this country and the constant assault on the institutions of the British people are now turning even the most tolerant of Britons into the arms of the fascists.  Our successive governments have allowed this to drift under a banner of multiculturalism.  Well I am a Brit and proud of it and I have to tell you guys in Government that it ain’t working – not one little bit.

It would appear to me that far from being us, the Great Christian Fundamentalist Crusade, that has lost our way,  it is Pakistan desperately searching for its soul.  Cabals within cliques ruled by the need for power or money or some other materialism hold sway over a diaspora that stretches from Islamabad to Bradford  The values of the Islamic religion are being  despoiled and held up for ridicule deliberately by manipulative mendacious people in an attempt to warp  British tolerance, and they are winning.

And in my sadness, there is an anger at the inability of my government and politicians to understand that I simply want to live lawfully under the common law of our country, which has been built up over a thousand years.  Britain is a Christian country which allows universal worship without persecution.  I have no choice in being British – I was born here and so were my ancestors going back to 1215, when they came across from Ireland to Scotland.  I conform to the laws and to the mores of my native land.  Why can’t my Government understand that there is a difference between wanting to live according to my culture and being a racist.  Why does everything that does not smack of even handedness and political correctness have an racist or fascist label slapped on it?  I am neither a racist or fascist but what I want to know is why cannot my Government give me what I want – the confidence to live out the rest of my life knowing that my British culture will be recognised and valued –  that our institutions will be maintained, that we will be free  to parade with our poppy’s without having to run a gauntlet of braying fundamentalists, burning a symbol of our beliefs with impunity.  Those poppy’s remind us of the men who carried rifles to defend the liberties that I would like to uphold.  The sacrifice and the effort they gave, my own family members amongst them, gain them honour.  I carried a rifle for Her Majesty as well and, like most, I believed in what I did when we heard the odd angry shot.  My sadness and anger this afternoon was caused not by some laddies cheating at cricket – it was about the deafening inability  of our elected leaders in both Pakistan and in Britain to call spades spades and understand that despite our differences all we really want is to live in peace and harmony together.