If there was a proliferation of prizes with all sorts of different, more or less arbitrary premisses - 'Best painting of a whale', 'Best painting in shades of grey' (the Major Prize), etc. - then the pressure would be off the Turner Prize. But there isn't, so it is expected to stand for all those absent prizes and possible reasons for giving prizes. It's like having only one event at the Olympics - 6,500 athletes, boxers, sprinters line up to do the high jump. It can't possibly satisfy most people.

I've never kept a diary past about 6 January (so I know a lot about the early Januaries of my life), but at the end of 1994 I made a resolution to keep one for 1995. I did it because I wanted to schedule in advance some of the things that Anthea and I don't get round to doing often enough - going to the cinema, the theatre, galleries and so on. The preplanning idea failed within weeks...