Lenten Fasting

I am a man naturally predisposed toward austerity, if not asceticism. I live prudently. The storage sheds of the Springheel estate abound with carefully saved logs and kindling. Our kitchen cupboards groan with tinned and preserved goods, laid by for a rainy day. And I cannot abide to throw things away which "have life left in them" (ie are not actually decomposing).

This is a function of age and upbringing, of course. I was born into this vale of tears just 7 years after the last rationing ended in the UK. I grew up with strikes and shortages, power cuts and uncertainty of supply. I witnessed the great inflation of the 70s and the recessions of the 80s and 90s...happy, happy days.

My parents were both raised in straitened circumstances in a poor industrial town (hard to believe, I acknowledge, but nevertheless true. I am by birth robustly proletarian, transmuted by some accident of fate into a valetudinarian, elitist fop). I was brought up to the mantra "waste not want not." Not that I live by it, but it sits like an elderly spinster at the back of my mind, tutting audibly when I am extravagant. Obviously, this is not an adjective that is ever applied to essentials such as books, brogues, moustache wax, tweed jackets, waistcoats and corduroys. But occasionally one strays from the path of rectitude, rigour and prudence.

But dammit, I digress again. I started down this route because, as a constitutionally austere, methodist-raised, chileastically-inclined individual I am obviously in my element in the lean years. And my excitement becomes palpable when the cruel necessities of recession are combined with the spiritual and behavioural stringencies of Lent.

Because, to the man in the street, Lent is all about giving stuff up. And so they try. And they fail, being weak and simple creatures, as we all are. This is why I like Lent: It affords ample opportunities for self denial and the associated panoply of temptation, sordid compromise, betrayal (both of self and of the trust of others), guilt and misery. It provides almost unrivalled opportunities for the normal, healthy, human being to end up feeling utterly wretched about themselves.

And I do like to see humans joining me in acknowledging our essential corruption,folly and weakness

As for me, giving up my few petty pleasures is rarely a trial. I simply stop whatever I am doing and exclude it utterly from my life - like a blackballed candidate for club membership. It provides insufficient misery to linger over, to savour. So this year, I have set myself a greater challenge. I am throwing down the gauntlet to those lightweights at Opus Dei, with their barbed wire garters and so forth. I have decided to go to the very heart of all that I hold dear and show that an Englishman can suffer stoically - and perhaps even heroically - for his beliefs. So I have given up biscuits, cake and chocolate.

Now, someone asked me today why, if I felt so strongly on the matter, did I not give up alcohol?

I mean, really...this is sort of ridiculous extremism that gets religion a bad name.