The Third Leader: Transcendental, man

With news just in of a confident bet by a woman in Milton Keynes that the Spice Girls will be at number one this Christmas, it seemed a good idea to look back rather than forward.

To more spiritual times, to 40 years ago, to the Sixties. And who still alive and, crucially, still able to remember, will not have been moved by the current prominence of Donovan?

People, as I have just done, do tend to emphasise the dreamier, self-destructive aspects of the period; so it's worth pointing out that on Tuesday the old boy managed a pitch perfect rendition of 'Yellow is the Colour' on his guitar in a radio car sitting next to David Lynch at 8.29am.

It was also refreshing to hear sentences ending once more in "yeah" and a Radio Four presenter addressed as "man".

And while I hold no candle,other than a nostalgic one, up in the air, for transcendental meditation, Donovan's continuing cause, it is worth pondering, as he urges its use in schools, how space in crowded classrooms could be much increased by staggeredyogic flying.

Imagine (if I might borrow the word), as well, the benefits of a Westminster that had regular and prolonged periods of silence, accompanied or not by thought.

More spiritual times, 4,500 years ago, are also recalled by the new theory that Silbury Hill, the mighty man-made mound in Wiltshire, was built as a tomb of souls. A humbling, provoking meditation. And now the Hill should be left alone in its intended silence. Unless Donovan wants to write a song about it, of course.