Spring 2003, and the jackboot of rugby tramps unchecked across five continents. The World Cup has ground into its eighth week, and still there is no sign of a second front. The Inglisch have swept all before them from Calais to Moscow. The forces of civilisation need a miracle. And so does Private Rudolph.

My generation knows plenty, despite being born after the death of Elvis. But venture back into the primeval mists of the mid-1970s and we become less certain of things. And nothing is more confounding to us than the notion that once, impossibly long ago, people used something other than the decimal system.

Ah ain’t never been abroad, although Ah nearly once won a vacation to Silverstone to watch the Briddish Grand Pricks. Ah would go, but the wife, Areola-Sue, don’t reckon it’s safe in mainland Europe ’cause her grandpappy got hisself shot by some military police in 1944.

Cookies and tea with Graeme Smith, a hunt for Miss Daisy, a possible dagga-smuggling operation, a Darth Vader impression, cricket and croquet. What could it all mean? Read President Thabo Mbeki’s diary and find out.

What did Joan of Arc and John McEnroe have in common, apart from 365 bad-hair days a year? They were members of the world’s most magnificent minority, a club that includes Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Picasso, Beethoven, Einstein and Bart Simpson: they were left-handers.

Can entertainment be measured? It certainly seems tricky in a world where George Lucas and Oprah Winfrey — jointly responsible for doubling the amount of schlock currently swilling about — were the two highest-earning ”personalities” of last year. Indeed, the couple responsible for Jar-Jar Binks and Dr Phil took home a combined -million last year.

Roger Federer is the first Swiss man to win Wimbledon. He is also the first Swiss man to say “thank you”, to smile, and to have a pretty girlfriend.