On reincarnation

On reincarnation

It's no good. I accidentally watched the Discovery Channel the other day, and hidden among its usual diet of Hitler Porn, made-up crap about the Da Vinci Code presented as wide-eyed fact and endless documentaries on Ancient Egypt, was a big pile of donkey doings about reincarnation.

Of course, some of this world's major religions have reincarnation as one of its central tenets, but this was not one of those programmes.

Instead, it centred on easily swayed people with bad haircuts, who were filmed paying good money to hypnotists to reveal that they were – in fact – Queen Cleopatra in a previous life.

In fact, every mad woman who believes in reincarnation thinks they were Queen Cleopatra in a previous life. It must have been bloody crowded in there, that's all I can say.

Most blokes of this bent also think they were Queen Cleopatra in a previous life. Or Henry VIII. It's never some bloke who lived in a back street in Widnes, worked in a factory and died at the age of seventy surrounded by his family. It's Cleo or nothing, anybody else is clearly second rate. Even Hattie Jacques.

As I've said, I'm not dissing the idea of reincarnation. I can't say whether I've been here before (though I can see, in my mind's eye, the hideous face of Sid James bearing down on me), but I'd like to come back after my three-score-years-and-ten to sort out some unfinished business.

I am hoping – you see- to come back as a women's bicycle saddle at Center Parcs.

The perfect fusion of technology, nature and yummy mummies in tight, white T-shirts.

To die for, as it were.