“And the bigger the sheet of paper, the worse, far worse, the quality.” I ask Paul if he found this hurtful He grumbles: “I never read reviews They only irritate you Poor Brian, anyway He’s quite lost his eye for these things. Now, this is the sun setting over Prague…” For a deeply religious man, Paul Johnson can sometimes seem quite mean.Into his study where, on his electronic typewriter, he has bashed out pieces on “Britain’s Pornographer-In-Chief” (former Channel 4 boss Michael Grade) for the Daily Mail, and penned open letters to John Major: “You are running a government with a low moral tone, in a way which suggests the Ten Commandments do not matter.” Alternatively, it might be a considered piece on homosexuality for The Spectator: “Why should a hostess make special provision for `gays’ who come to stay bringing their `friends’, or indeed invite them in the first place? After all, other guests might not like living in the same house as people who could have Aids.”No more watercolours here, although we do have a whacking big statue of Jesus on the cross (“I kiss his feet every morning”), photographs of Paul with the Pope, Thatcher and Reagan, a framed letter from Karl Popper telling Paul he’s “a marvel” and, more worryingly, a framed letter from Tony Blair. this is the view from Taki’s chalet…” They look pretty enough to me, but he once had an exhibition which did not much impress the art critic Brian Sewell “Nothing of the slightest merit is to be seen,” he wrote. this is the sun setting over Lake Como, where we go every September… this is where I go walking in the Alps with Taki and Carla Powell… “He’s the greatest living philosopher, although nobody believes me when I say so He’s black!”He leads me down the hall. Aside from everything else, he is that most English of things, a Sunday watercolourist, and the walls are chock-a- block with his gilt-framed landscapes.

I get the full run-down: “Now, this is the view from our house in Somerset… However, it has now thinned and faded to a kind of Heseltine, weak blond, while his cheeks are so mapped with teensy broken veins they seem colonised by armies of little red spiders. He has just arrived back from California, he says, where he met the philosopher Thomas Stowell. He used to have such a great big, red, bouffant hair- do that Jonathan Miller once described him as looking like “an explosion in a pubic hair factory”. Substitutes not used: Rogers, Crossley (gk).Referee: P Durkin (Portland).Bookings: Middlesbrough: Townsend, Gascoigne. Forest: Stone, Hjelde.Attendance: 34,223.Man of the match: Townsend..

LEGAL NOTE: – Do not repeat un-corroborated allegation that Paul Johnson said Gloria Stewart had told lies. Deborah Ross

So, to the smart little West London house of Paul Johnson, prolific right-wing polemicist, Spectator columnist, historian, colossal Catholic, total expert at turning on sixpence, and great, thundering preacher of family values – until he was caught out being spanked by his mistress of 11 years, which did prove immensely satisfying all round, yes.
Anyway, he answers the door himself He is getting on a bit now and is, actually, 70 today. I have to go there twice a week for the next month.”Hopefully, I won’t be drinking, in fact definitely, but I am not going to be boring Paul Gascoigne I am just going to enjoy my football and not drink. I have to just keep things under control, and it looks as though there will be plenty of opportunities for me to drive the car.”Goals: Deane (22) 1-0; Harewood (88) 1-1.Middlesbrough (3-5-2): Beresford; Vickers, Festa, Cooper; Fleming (Stockdale, 73), Mustoe, Gascoigne (Stamp, 78), Townsend, Gordon; Ricard, Deane. Substitutes not used: Beck, Summerbell, Schwarzer (gk).Nottingham Forest (3-5-2): Beasant; Hjelde, Chettle, Armstrong; Stone, Gemmill, Quashie (Lyttle, 73), Bart-Williams, Bonalair (Gray, 75); Shipperley (Freedman, 80), Harewood. Just an illusion that Middlesbrough had the match in their grasp.”It will take me a few games to get where I want to be,” said Gascoigne “I have a bit more work to do at the clinic.

Brian Deane lost what marking there was to go on and strike his first goal in the Premiership since returning from Portugal and Benfica for pounds 3m.That should have been the start of something very worthwhile But there was no Gascoigne magic. And when he did make an impact, a heavy one on Forest’s Scott Gemmill, it brought him a booking, his fifth of the season, which guarantees him a one-match ban. Gazza is back, at least for the time being.It did not take Middlesbrough long to claim their lead, established after 21 minutes following Andy Townsend’s superb long diagonal pass. Though he opened up brightly, he was more often than not a peripheral figure. Two years to this very day he picked Gascoigne for England just as wife-beating revelations were breaking.Here, he damaged no one in particular with his abilities which have been in cold storage since he entered a clinic at Roehampton following his most recent Premiership appearance against Sheffield Wednesday on 3 October. Harewood could easily have won it for Forest in stoppage time when he was played into prime scoring territory by the substitute, Dougie Freedman. However, if Beresford might have done better in his attempts to prevent the equaliser, he redeemed himself by excellent positioning to make his save from Harewood’s attempted lob look easy.Coincidentally, this transformation materialised in Gascoigne’s absence, having pushed himself to the limits of fragile fitness levels and been withdrawn after 78 minutes in favour of Phil Stamp.He was always going to get a standing ovation no matter how much or little he contributed to this game Some people just like standing by Gascoigne Take Glenn Hoddle.

No matter that this was not the return of which fairly tales and Gazza legends are made. Particularly from the perspective of those who love a sob story, he won himself some respect simply through the very act of stepping back into the Premiership only a week after slipping out of a drying-out clinic.
So, no this was not vintage Gascoigne, but then it was not vintage Middlesbrough either, despite a bright opening thrust which suggested they had the capability of seeing off Dave Bassett’s strugglers with more than something to spare.The reality was that in the end they were lucky not to suffer their first home league defeat of the season on the back of an embarrassing Worthington Cup exit at the hands of Everton.Forest, who had earlier looked an identikit of a team convinced it is going to be relegated, changed their face and caught Middlesbrough up through an 88th-minute goal from their teenage forward Marlon Harewood who lost his marker, Gianluca Festa, and fired a low drive beneath the goalkeeper Marlon Beresford.If that was not insult enough to Bryan Robson’s team, especially after all the Gazza hype, then the egg could have really been plastered over the collective face. “I am extremely proud of the Ferrari team and what it has achieved this year,” he said “Today’s race was a roulette, one of those things. It is great for the sport that two top teams should be so close.”Not to mention that the World Championship had been settled without the controversy and rancour of Jerez 1997.Richard Williams, Derick Allsop, results, page 28. PAUL GASCOIGNE lifted the cloud of depression which has enveloped his life these last few weeks, and let a little sunshine in. Before the race, the Ferrari president, Luca di Montezemolo had sat down for an hour with the McLaren chief, Ron Dennis.”I am here because first of all I wanted to support the team,” Di Montezemolo said.