I have a cunning plan. It is so ingenious, so downright devious in fact, that it makes me want to throw my head back and cackle wildly like an overacting baddie in a crackly old black and white movie. Well, I've got the belly and the moustache, so there's no reason why I couldn't pull it off quite convincingly.

The idea came to me in a blinding flash as I was trying to light the gas hob with a match the size of a flame-thrower. If Mariah Carey can get paid for doing bog all, so can I!

Just minutes earlier I had been listening to the radio while making a cuppa and wondering where the distinctly gassy smell was coming from. A report came on about how the nauseating American songstress was being paid off by Virgin to the catchy tune of £20 million not to make any more albums.

Personally, I would give her a couple of extra quid to set fire to her entire back catalogue as well, but perhaps that is just because I am a musical philistine who doesn't appreciate the talent it takes to sing a very high note for a very long time for no apparent reason.

The record company apparently wants to give her the heave-ho after her latest release failed to sell the mega millions that were predicted and her movie Glitter, which I'm sure is something absolutely filthy in Cockney rhyming slang, was panned as a "crime against cinema".

But if she would insist on doing a film about a disgraced Brit rocker with a penchant for unconvincing wigs, dodgy leather and girls whose idea of foreplay is a game of hopscotch, then she could hardly have expected an Oscar nomination.

Then again, moon-faced Mariah is not known for her grip on reality. She was recently hospitalised suffering from the celebrity disease "mental and physical exhaustion" after a bizarre accident involving crockery and the cutting of wrists.

Statements like "I just want to have one day where I can swim and eat ice cream and look for rainbows and learn how to ride a bike" don't exactly help boost her credibility as a normal human being either.

But I digress. Back to my cunning plan.

I worked it out, using several bits of paper, two pencils and my son's talking till that he got for Christmas, that £20 million is 70 per cent of the record-breaking (if only she had taken that literally) sum Ms Carey was originally paid by the record company to actually do some work and make her revolting albums.

All she did was sing some duff songs. Now I might be blowing my own trumpet here, but I believe that I can write some really duff columns. Which from next week is what I cunningly plan to do, so the powers-that-be here at the good old Evening Press will pay me off with 70 per cent of my contracted fee.

Come Friday I firmly predict that Mariah will have her £20 million and I will have the grand total of ... £28.

Keeping a three year old entertained is not easy. In fact I would put it on a par with keeping a lion under control with a stick of celery and a crumpled copy of the Radio Times.

If you are on a tight budget, your options are limited, especially if you are not particularly creative and cannot make anything more exciting with a pot of plasticine than worms or, if you are on an imaginative high, snakes.

So when you find something your child likes doing, something that's cheap, cheerful and not likely to cause lasting damage, you make the most of it. For me and the Munchkin, a trip round the Minster fulfils all these criteria.

I am not religious and he still thinks the Baby Jesus is one of Santa's little helpers, but we both appreciate what York's stunning cathedral has to offer. The Munchkin loves looking at "the big boat" (a model of HMS Pickering) and "the fancy windows", while I appreciate the relaxed, comfortingly solemn atmosphere that, just for a few fleeting moments, makes you forget that Teletubbies had ever been invented.

If the Dean and Chapter decide to impose an entry fee - a move they are considering due to dwindling visitor numbers and poor donations - I know our visits will be less frequent.

Keeping a three year old and his mum off the streets might not seem like the most pressing reason to keep the Minster entry fee free, but it is reason enough for us.

Updated: 09:12 Tuesday, January 29, 2002