Joe Hart, an intelligent and articulate young footballer, is diplomatic enough to agree with the suggestion, which has just been put to him, that training with England in the north London sunshine without any other recognisable international goalkeeper around must be a curiously lonely experience. "Yeah, it did feel a bit strange," he says, reflecting on the injuries to Scott Carson and Ben Foster which left him alone with the Arsenal rookie James Shea on his club's London Colney turf earlier this week.
The events of the past 18 months might mean that Hart relished the solitude out there. He was the established first-team goalkeeper at Manchester City in January 2009 when he caught the early whispers about Shay Given's impending arrival and was pitched into the season-long journey of discovery, to Birmingham City on loan and back, which has finally convinced the two important Italians in his life – Roberto Mancini and Fabio Capello – that he should be their man for the future.
Today, with his supremacy at Eastlands re-established and a first competitive start for England against Bulgaria at Wembley just a day away, Hart should feel that he has the football world in the palm of those capable hands. Yet there is no sense of him resting on his laurels. He might appear capable of remaining the custodian of the England gloves for just as long as David Seaman, the man who was his inspiration in his formative years, but Given's decision this week to stay put and fight for a place at City – Mancini has convinced him he will not win trophies anywhere else – means that there is still one international-class keeper too many at that club. For Hart, you might say it's still a case of two's company and two's a crowd.
The question "Are you pleased Shay is staying?" is an invidious one, which invites another of those diplomatic replies of his – "It's great," Hart says, without a hint of irony – though the 23-year-old has been buffeted enough by the vagaries of the top-flight game in the past two seasons for the sympathy for his club-mate to have its limits. "It's obviously Shay's situation to deal with," Hart says of Given's decision to forego a reunion with Mark Hughes at Fulham. "I've no doubt he had endless clubs wanting him, but it's not quite as simple as saying, 'I want to go there', and turning up. We both know it's not our decision so we've not been malicious towards each other. It doesn't really need to be discussed. Us discussing it would solve nothing."
All of which makes Hart's England future by comparison seem remarkably uncomplicated. The going so far has been smooth. Hart is yet to concede to an opposition player in his four appearances in friendlies, Phil Jagielka's own-goal against Hungary last month being the only England goal he has shipped. The international jersey did bring one of Hart's more difficult moments in the summer of 2009 when, having helped England to the final of the European Under-21 Championship, he was suspended for being booked in the semi-final against Sweden, his crime being the "ungentlemanly conduct" of trying to put off his opponents during the penalty shoot-out. Hart, suspended for the final, said in the immediate aftermath that "football is supposed to be fun" and that he was "just trying to act in the traditions of Bruce Grobbelaar" and he remains indignant about the blot on his reputation.
"I wasn't shouting at anyone. I don't shout and scream," he says. "I don't know what I got booked for because [the referee] told me not to say anything and I didn't say a word throughout the whole thing. I was just stood off my line looking at the guy who was taking the penalty. He was a long way off taking it, the ball was nowhere near the spot and the referee must have had a problem with me."
But Hart has travelled a long way since that June afternoon in Gothenburg; the work he did with Birmingham's goalkeeping coach Dave Watson has been instrumental in the development of a keeper whose domination of the penalty area is, in Mancini's mind, where he scores over Given. Capello's decision not to use Hart in South Africa makes him one of those players who, a little like Theo Walcott, enters the European Championship qualifying campaign with a clean slate. "Coming back from our clubs, though, it is a lot fresher [than at the World Cup] and there is a lot more to talk about. It's a whole lot different. Exciting times."
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A recent survey by the Confederation of British Industry found that, although British workers are taking fewer sickies – just 180 million sick days last year, the lowest number since 1987 – the usual suspects are keeping them away from the office: "mental health issues" such as stress, anxiety and depression, and good old-fashioned back pain. According to the Health and Safety Executive, back pain is a particular bane of workers doing manual labour, delivery work, repetitive tasks such as packing, and those in sedentary roles. As our economy is increasingly dominated by financial and other services, burgeoning numbers of white-collar workers fall into the latter category. And back pain is the inevitable consequence, with eight out of 10 Britons hit by a dodgy back at some point.
I feel their pain. Decades of spinal abuse have taken their toll recently, as my forty-something body finally ground to a halt. I have, it must be said, had a good run: years of joint-punishing marathons and general pavement-pounding, adventure racing, football, tennis and Thai boxing, all at full throttle, ignoring the niggly injuries. Then, the clincher: a stooping, slouchy posture and a decade's desk-jockeying, glued to my Mac for up to 12 hours a day.
And boy, have I paid for it. Decades of lower back pain finally graduated to full-on sciatica recently – a whole different order of agony. The evil sciatica (when the sciatic nerve that runs from the back of your pelvis, through your buttocks and all the way down both legs, gets compressed or irritated) struck last Christmas, after an especially stressful and overworked period, sending scalding pains shooting from my back, through the left buttock and down the hamstring into my calf. Not fun.
Over the years, I've enriched a wide variety of back-crackers, from osteopaths to chiropractors, physios to acupuncturists, deep-tissue massage bruisers to dainty shiatsu girls; yoga, hot packs, cold compresses, anti-inflammatory pills ... been there, done it, got the invoice. (It's worth noting that, of all these approaches, only osteopathy gets the nod in Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh's book assessing the efficacy of complementary medicine, Trick or Treatment: Alternative Medicine on Trial.) And even the best of these approaches share a common flaw: variously effective at relieving your symptoms, but when the pain's drained away you slip back into old, destructive habits. For me, that means walking with Chaplin-esque splayed feet; a terrible stooping habit I picked up as a shy, gangly teenager; forgetting to prise myself away from the Mac every now and then; and my passion for running, a seemingly healthful pastime that's actually a pounding assault on your musculoskeletal system, especially on London's unyielding pavements.
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A leading adviser to the Archbishop of Westminster has blamed abortion and gay rights for turning Britain into a "selfish, hedonistic wasteland" which has become "the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death".
Edmund Adamus, director of pastoral affairs at the diocese of Westminster and an adviser to Archbishop Vincent Nichols, said Parliament had turned Britain into a country which is more culturally anti-Catholic than nations where Christians are violently persecuted such as Saudi Arabia, China and Pakistan.
His comments, made with only weeks to go before Pope Benedict XVI's historic state visit to Britain, will cause embarrassment between organisers of the visit and government officials, because they reveal how some members of the Church's hierarchy believe that the pontiff is travelling to a hostile and anti-Catholic country.
In an interview with Zenit, a Catholic news agency with close links to the Vatican, Mr Adamus railed against five decades of equality legislation and the availability of abortion services in modern Britain.
"Whether we like it or not, as British citizens and residents of this country – and whether we are even prepared as Catholics to accept this reality and all it implies – the fact is that historically, and continuing right now, Britain, and in particular London, has been and is the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death," he said.
"Our laws and lawmakers for over 50 years have been the most permissively anti-life and progressively anti-family and marriage, in essence one of the most anti-Catholic landscapes, culturally speaking – more than even those places where Catholics suffer open persecution."
The expression "culture of death" was first coined by John Paul II and is frequently used by Catholic traditionalists as a catch-all phrase covering the practice of abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment.
Mr Adamus' comments are significant because of his senior position in one of the most influential dioceses in the country. His role as pastoral director gives him access to some of the Church's most senior figures, including Archbishop Nichols. He was once a priest at St Augustine's in central Manchester but he left the clergy and married.
In the same interview, he spoke at length about marriage and the role of men and women, pleading with Catholics to "exhibit counter-cultural signals against the selfish, hedonistic wasteland that is the objectification of women for sexual gratification."
He added: "Britain in particular, with its ever-increasing commercialisation of sex, not to mention its permissive laws advancing the 'gay' agenda, is such a wasteland."
Last night, the leader of Catholics in England and Wales distanced himself from the interview. A spokesperson for Archbishop Nichols said the views expressed by Mr Adamus "did not reflect the Archbishop's opinions".
Mr Adamus's comments, however, drew widespread criticism from gay rights groups and secularists. Peter Tatchell, a leading figure behind the Protest the Pope coalition, said: "The suggestion that gay equality laws make Britain a moral wasteland is insulting but not unexpected. The Pope supports legal discrimination against gay people. He says we are not entitled to equal human rights.
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Amanda Knox, the American student convicted of murdering her flatmate Meredith Kercher in Italy, has revealed how she hopes to adopt children and become a writer when she has served her 26-year sentence. The revelations were made in meetings she had with Rocco Girlanda, an Umbrian politician who has made numerous visits to Knox at her prison in Perugia.
Mr Girlanda, who first met Knox around the time of her conviction, told Associated Press yesterday that he kept a diary of the conversations – material that forms the basis of a 240-page book, Take Me With You – Talks with Amanda Knox in Prison, to be published in Italy and the US in the autumn. They never discussed the case, he said, but the book includes letters and poetry Knox sent to the politician, who is head of a foundation promoting ties between the two countries. All proceeds will go to his foundation.
Knox, 23, was convicted last December of the murder and sexual assault of Kercher, a British student, in 2007. Knox's former boyfriend and another man were also convicted. All three maintain their innocence and are appealing. Knox's appeal is set to begin on 24 November.
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There are problems with language learning in schools and universities – but these need not be as terminal or wretched as is made out. Latin and Greek have long had to struggle in the education system, and many lessons could be learned from the efforts classicists have put in to maintaining the subject in the secondary and tertiary education system.
It may be true that only 25% of primary schools presently have modern language provision, but a far higher proportion of schools have some kind of Latin on offer, mainly in the form of after-school clubs. The Primary Latin Project is in contact with over 1,700 primary schools and their textbook, Minimus, has sold over 100,000 copies. I am in contact with over 100 primary and prep schools and am involved in a range of projects, including collaboration with the Iris Project, which runs taster courses of Latin in Oxford and London schools.
A French teacher in a state primary watched a group of year 3-6 children with whom I worked perform a Latin play in front of an audience of invited adults. My star performer was a year 6 boy with no previous experience in Latin who had become able to ad lib where needed, and the teacher exclaimed afterwards that he never spoke in French lessons. The problem clearly didn't lie with a lack of interest in languages per se; perhaps the national curriculum just isn't working. When students have the chance to learn Latin, they often leap at it.
At secondary level a similar story is true. The Latin Teaching Scheme in Oxford saw 20 students from eight local state schools sit the Latin GCSE this summer. They willingly gave up their Saturday mornings for two years in order to learn it. This does not sound like a generation uninterested in languages. A new cohort started in February 2010 and will sit the GCSE in 2012. I could have filled the places three times over. The students have commented that it was harder than they expected, but they express a sense of pride at their achievement. They were not all gifted and talented, and the results were mixed. But they rose to the challenge and enjoyed taking something that stretched them.
Perhaps in some ways we are not asking enough of our young people, feeding them a sterile curriculum, which fails to excite them intellectually. Not everyone will end up reading Caesar fluently, but, I suggest, some exposure to Latin could interest and benefit almost all students. At tertiary level, students flock to take up Latin, as successful university beginners' courses testify.
It does not matter if it is "just" the effect of Harry Potter, Gladiator or Rome: Total War. For whatever reason, many students want to learn Latin. If they do, and we can use this to inspire in them a love of language as a thinking tool as well as a means of communication, then all language learning will benefit.
An integrated curriculum, linking Latin and Greek with modern languages, could be the way ahead. We need not return to the direct method for Latin and force students to pretend it can be used in the same way as other languages, but shutting Latin out with the claim that it is elitist is the most certain way to keep it so and deny the richness it can offer students.
I regularly work with groups to improve their linguistic awareness, challenging them with tasks involving a range of Indo-European languages. Teaching them to respect and use languages, to engage their brains in the puzzle of their decipherment, is always appreciated. Students respond that they never realised how interconnected languages were, and some schools have reported a more generally positive attitude towards languages as a result.
As pointed out by Professor Christopher Pelling and Dr Llewelyn Morgan in their recent Politeia report, Latin is not classified as a language by the curriculum, and should be. Students in primary and secondary schools would learn it if they could, and would benefit from it in many ways.
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This is great with warmed corn tortillas. Serves four to six.
1 squash (butternut or red onion), weighing around 1kg
1 tbsp olive oil
3 cobs of corn
2 cloves garlic, peeled and very finely chopped
2 red chillies, very finely chopped
200g goat's cheese, crumbled with your hands (or chopped)
Juice of 1 lime
1 handful chopped coriander leaves, to garnish
For the dressing
80g pumpkin seeds
2 cloves garlic crushed
2 tomatoes (green, ideally, but not to worry if you can't get hold of any)
2 green lettuce leaves (romaine or cos), chopped
1 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped
2 green chillies, roughly chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and freshly milled pepper
Peel and deseed the squash. Chop the flesh into 1-2cm chunks, tip into an oven tray, toss in olive oil, season and roast in a medium oven (190C/375F/gas mark 5) for about 30 minutes, until starting to brown and just cooked through.
While the squash is roasting, cook the corn in boiling water for about 10 minutes. Drain, refresh and leave to cool a little, then cut the kernels from the cobs.
Take the squash out of the oven (leave the heat on) and toss in the chopped garlic, chilli and corn kernels. Transfer the lot to an ovenproof serving dish and return to the oven for five minutes.
Meanwhile, make the dressing by dry-frying the pumpkin seeds over a medium heat for five minutes, until they are toasted and have popped. When cool, tip the seeds into the jug of a liquidiser, add all the other dressing ingredients and blend, adding a little water to take it to a pouring consistency.
Fold the goat's cheese into the squash and corn mix, and return to the oven for another 10 minutes or so, until the goat's cheese is hot.
To serve, squeeze lime juice over the pumpkin mix, drizzle the dressing over, season to taste and sprinkle with coriander.
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A British spy found murdered in his flat might have lain undiscovered for up to two weeks.
The man, named locally as Gareth Williams, was found stuffed in a large sports holdall in the bath of his central London home.
Mr Williams, aged in his 30s, was employed as a communications officer at the GCHQ "listening post" in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
He was on secondment to the riverside headquarters of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, about half a mile from the flat.
Officers discovered Mr Williams after breaking into the flat on Monday afternoon when the alarm was raised by colleagues who had not seen him for "some time".
They found his decomposing body, as well as his mobile phone and several Sim cards, laid out nearby at the top-floor flat in Alderney Street, Pimlico.
A post-mortem examination was being carried out by a Home Office pathologist today to establish what led to his death.
Sources close to the inquiry said it is not clear how he died and played down speculation that the murder is linked to his secretive line of work.
One source said: "The suggestion there is terrorism or national security links to this case is pretty low down the list of probabilities."
Neighbours described Mr Williams as an "extremely friendly" and athletic man who enjoyed cycling and had a strong Welsh accent.
They said he had lived in London for about a year and was planning to return to Cheltenham, where he rented a flat.
A postwoman who called at the block today said he often collected parcels at the communal front door.
Secretary Laura Houghton, 30, said: "His windows were always shut and curtains were often closed. I could never tell if anyone was in.
"It was strange that we never saw him come and go. I just assumed he worked away.
"The first I heard of anything happening was when the police knocked on my door and asked me if I had heard anything happening. I told them the walls were so thick that I couldn't hear a thing.
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Warrington coach Tony Smith has effectively ruled Chris Bridge out of his line-up for the Challenge Cup final by naming him in his squad for the Carnegie Floodlit Nines at Headingley tonight.
The England centre has recovered more quickly than expected from a shoulder operation and an alternative interpretation is that his coach is testing his fitness in the short form of the game.
But Smith is adamant that is not the case. "I'm disappointed for Chris, because he was playing so well, but it's a bridge too far for him," he said. "We'll have him for the last league game of the season and for the play-offs and that's better than we thought."
Warrington and Leeds will name their 19-man squads tomorrow and their final 17s on Friday.
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The England manager, Fabio Capello, refused to comment yesterday on suggestions that he is contemplating the controversial selection of Mikel Arteta, Everton's Spanish midfielder who is eligible to play for England having never represented his native Spain.
Arteta, 28, could become a naturalised British citizen, having been in the country for five years with Everton. When Capello left Craven Cottage last night, having seen Fulham's 2-2 draw with Manchester United, he refused to be drawn on the issue saying: "I not speak about these things."
However, the Football Association is refusing to comment on the possibility that England could yet turn to a player born in San Sebastien who played for the Spain Under-21s. For many England supporters it would betray the notion of international football and the matter may yet become a decision for the FA main board rather than just Capello.
After England's dismal World Cup however, Capello is prepared to push the boundaries in order to strengthen his squad. In the past, he said of the Arsenal goalkeeper Manuel Almunia, another Spaniard who would be eligible to play for England, that it would be down to him to put himself forward. Arteta said he would consider the idea.
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David Rudisha of Kenya broke the men's 800m world record yesterday by running 1min, 41.09sec, only minutes after Caster Semenya had returned to the Berlin Olympic Stadium to win the women's race over the same distance.
Rudisha powered home to beat the previous record of 1:41.11 set by Wilson Kipketer, a Kenyan-born runner from Denmark, in Cologne in August 1997.
"I met him last year and he told me, 'I can see you have a future in the 800, you can beat the world record,'" Rudisha said of Kipketer. "He encouraged me to go for it."
Rudisha broke the record at the same stadium where he was just a semi-finalist in the 800m at last year's world championships. "I was very disappointed last year, but the weather was so cold then," said Rudisha, a 21-year-old former world junior champion. "I knew that I would be fast today and that I am in good shape. I was just hoping the weather would be good. It was a bit windy but otherwise it was perfect," he said.
Once the pacemaker dropped out after the first lap, Rudisha ran alone against the clock. "I saw I was inside world record pace in the final straight and I just went for it. This was really the first time I tried to break the record," Rudisha said. "Now my next steps are to win world and Olympic titles. But I can still improve my record."
While Rudisha did not have good memories of his previous visit to Berlin, the Olympic Stadium was the site of Semenya's triumph at the world championships last year. She subsequently missed 11 months of competition while undergoing gender tests.
"I still feel the same but it was not easy for a 19-year-old girl to go through what I've been through," Semenya said after cruising home in 1min 59.90sec to a warm reception from the nearly 50,000-strong crowd. "I ran a good time, I felt at home."
The South African teenager surged ahead in the last 50 metres in her third race since she was cleared to run again last month. She competed in two minor races in Finland before being invited to run in Berlin. Semenya, who hopes to make the South Africa team for the Commonwealth Games in October, was 4.45sec slower than her winning time of 1min 55.45sec in Berlin last year.
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