Observations from the path to heroism

I MAY have spent all week in bed, clammy under the duvet, but I have not been malingering. I agree that all the signs were there: daytime television drivelling away in the background, a protective nest of paperbacks (Phantom over Vietnam, The Saint in London, Biggles Learns To Fly, Sklavin- Markt Nr 116 and so on), old coffee cups, fag-ends and bits of fidgety ropework littered around the bed, tell-tale Chocolate Hob-Nob crumbs and a faint but suggestive aroma of Rievaulx incense.

But I was not malingering. I was searching for the hero inside myself.

You have to. It says so on the television, in the advertisement for that rather nellie little car. Not: "You might like to consider the possibility of searching for the hero inside yourself." Not: "Some of us really enjoy searching for the hero inside ourselves; why don't you give it a whirl? Hell, what harm can it do, the state your life is in?" No: "You've got to search for the hero inside yourself."

Minatory and vengeful though they may be, those words would carry no more than the usual weight all of us give to the exhortations of people clever enough to write advertisements for the television, were it not for the uncanny accuracy with which the copy-writers also revealed my very own 12,367 personal daily thoughts (12,366 if you exclude the one which goes "This is my 12,367th thought today," which is purely an administrative thought for internal bookkeeping purposes, with no wider significance.) I mean, they were dead right, every time, even down to the Red Indian putting his slap on, just after the pregnant woman but before the earthquake. ("Here comes the pregnant woman thought," I say to myself; "Soon be time for the Red Indian.")

This clearly was not just any advertisement, able to be brushed aside with one of my two carefully crafted brushing-aside techniques. Technique A is the one I use most often, and goes: "Bollocks," while for more intractable cases I fall back upon technique B, for example: "Who's this sod with a face like a robber's dog and the menacing monotone? Ah. Royal Bank of Scotland credit card. Bollocks."

But it wouldn't do, here. These were graver matters. I wondered at first whether you actually had to buy the car before you could begin the search, but then I thought, no, a Peugeot's a girl's car, never liked them, not since they lent me one for a rally and then rang me up and were actually rude, just because I'd forgotten to give it back. Could happen to anyone. You know how it is when you're halfway through a rally, stuck overnight in the Italian Alps, and you ring your woman and she says "It's all over between us", and you go into a sort of daze and drive back to London through the night in a rainstorm and at 0700 GMT the next day you have to be on a flight to Edinburgh to give a speech and you park the car at Heathrow, leaking oil, and just... forget about it. You know how it is. And then you go into hiding (grief and wild sobbing) and it's 10 days before Peugeot can find their car and then they have to tow it back and what with the burned-out clutch and the smashed window and the rock through the sump they just have to write it off, and then - then - they complain. They are rude. What do they expect, for heaven's sake? See? Huh. Girl's car.

So... it was just me, on my own, searching for the hero inside myself, and guess what? No trace. Looked everywhere - ego, id, subconscious, Cowper's gland, everywhere - and nothing. Zip. Big fat zero.

I was just about to write to Peugeot saying "I searched for the hero inside myself and he wasn't there, so you can put your girlie car up your bottom" when I realised that it was not their fault, but mine. My paradigms of heroism were disgustingly old hat. The hero I was searching for was a lean, rangy, cold-eyed bugger with leathery foot soles, one of those shirts like the Bush Tucker Man's, and, QED, a disgusting old hat. He'd go for miles across desert and mountain to do the right thing, fuelled on nothing but India pale ale and self-esteem. The muscles in his arms would stand out like whipcords when he saved the girl from the quicksand. The spinning aeroplane would respond to his strong brown hands on the controls. At night he would play Scarlatti on his collapsible camp spinet. Animals thought of him as a chum, and his men would follow him even to certain death. He understood guns, navigation and The Wild, abjured book- learning, and was exempt from susceptibility to lung cancer, coronary heart disease and the consequences of venery.

He was, in short, a fossil, so I have redefined my search parameters and am now searching inside myself for a different kind of hero, more in tune with our times.

This new hero has a palmtop computer and saves all his receipts. His finances are in order and he can go to see his accountant without spending the previous night throwing up in fear and shame. He lives within his means, weighs the odds, and knows what "financial consultants" are on about. He makes informed buying decisions and is never behind with administrative matters. When it comes to office politics, he is ahead of the game, thanks to the rigorous analyses he performs on his personal computer. He demands the best and always makes sure his personal accessories keep pace with the ever-changing world of business. His emotional life is under control, his wife is docile, his children are clean; every third Thursday he has sex with his PA in a mid-range hotel, carrying a bar of the same soap he has at home for his post-adultery wash. He knows the Internet is the new frontier. His pension will be adequate. When he cashes in his share options he will buy a little place in Provence.

I know he is within me, and I will find him or die. The search has its frustrations, but at least it has stopped me thinking of the Red Indian. No! It hasn't! I just thought about him! Damn. How desperately unheroic. !