The goal is to graduate

QUESTION

I can remember top flight footballers who were university graduates. Are there any in the Premier League today? SunderlAnd’S duncan Watmore recently received a first-class honours degree in economics and business management at newcastle university.

He says it was hard work: ‘There were a lot of long nights in my flat just catching up, reading textbooks, going online for lectures, emailing lecturers.’

duncan, 22, is only the second player in Premier league history to achieve such a feat. david Wetherall, who played for Sheffield Wednesday, leeds and Bradford city during his career, is the only other former Premier league player to get a first at university, in chemistry at the university of Sheffield in 1992.

liverpool goalkeeper Simon Mignolet has a degree in political and social science (and some Koppites wish he had stuck to politics). Manchester united’s Juan Mata has a degree in journalism from universidad Politecnica de Madrid.

Former Arsenal player Andrey Arshavin graduated from St Petersburg State university of Technology and design. He has his own fashion line and wrote his thesis on a suit that is also sportswear. Stoke city and one-time england full-back Glen Johnson is at present studying for a mathematics degree at the Open university.

Aaron Hughes, Swansea.

QUESTION

Are the Nag Hammadi texts a hoax? THe nag Hammadi library is a collection of 13 ancient codices containing more than 50 texts, which was discovered by Arab farmers in egypt in 1945.

They are quite real, although they are not accepted by orthodox christians. The texts date from the 4th century Ad and offer alternative versions of Jesus’s life and teachings, including the gnostic Gospels of Thomas, Peter and Philip, and the Gospel of Truth. Other documents On top of his game: Sunderland’s Duncan Watmore has a first-class degree include a compilation of sayings attributed to the born-again Jesus, prayers and theological discourses.

it was thought that they were concealed around Ad 367, when Athanasius, the powerful Bishop of Alexandria, issued a decree known as the ‘Festal letter’ in which he condemned the teachings of Gnostic christianity as ‘apocrypha’ and delineated the accepted canon found in the new Testament as the familiar 27 chapters including the canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, luke and John.

in reaction, monks from the monastery of St Pachomius in upper egypt smuggled out a group of codices, eventually burying them in the sands, although this account has since been questioned. in Gnosticism: Ancient Voices, christian World, author nicola denzey lewis offers an explanation at once more sober yet more mystic.

She believes that they were part of the funerary tradition of burying important artefacts with the deceased, very much in line with the egyptian Book Of The dead or the Pyramid Texts.

She writes: ‘They were simply deposited in graves as a sort of “grave good”. it was not an unusual instance in late ancient egypt to bury a book in a tomb, since books were luxury items that might demonstrate the prestige and wealth of their owner. Some even speculate that there was a connection between the writings in nH books and a preoccupation about the nature of the afterlife; this is a major theme in many of the individual tractates in the nag Hammadi collection.’

Caroline Tate, Richmond, Surrey.

QUESTION

Various actors have turned down the role of James Bond. What well-known names declined a chance to play Bond villains? FurTHer to the earlier answer, speculation that Sting was offered the part of Max Zorin in A View To A Kill (1985), before david Bowie turned it down, is probably borne out of a previous approach.

Sting was offered the part of henchman emile locque in 1981 in For Your eyes Only, but reluctantly turned it down due to other commitments.

it is true that Anthony Hopkins was courted to play the baddies in Goldeneye (1995) and Tomorrow never dies (1997), but he had previously been shortlisted to play businessman Sir Henry lee ching along with Whoopi Goldberg as his henchwoman, ronin, in what would have been Timothy dalton’s third Bond film.

unfortunately, production was stalled due to a legal dispute between the producers and the backing studio, MGM/ uA. By the time this was resolved, the script was considered to have lost its currency and dalton’s contract had expired. Goldeneye and Pierce Brosnan replaced them.

Given the pair made their movie debuts together in The lion in Winter (1968), it is felt Hopkins may have accepted a chance to work with his friend dalton, but the only comment he has made is that the studio never offered him the part.

Hopkins is not the only actor to have twice missed out on playing a Bond baddie. James Mason was considered for carl Stromberg in The Spy Who loved Me (1977) and Sir Hugo drax in Moonraker (1979). On both occasions, he was unavailable.

Barry McCann, Blackpool, Lancs.

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