WHEN I was younger and very naive I believed the cliché about building a better mousetrap and the world beating a path to your door. I took this to mean if you had a great idea it would take off, no matter who you were.

But time moves on, and I now see, sadly, another cliché more truly reflects life – it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, to which I would add, it’s who you are, as well.

You know what I mean; remember coming up with the great eureka moment of how to solve an apparently insoluble problem, and being completely ignored – and then someone more powerful, or with the ear of someone more powerful, comes up with much the same thing and everyone applauds? Anyone who says they’ve never had that experience is probably either a liar or was born into the Royal Family. It’s been going on for centuries, and is one of the reasons why in times past those with talent sought those with power as patrons, to ensure their creativity wasn’t wasted in obscurity.

It was, perhaps, appropriate at Easter to find the Archbishop of York exemplifying this truth. Before being somewhat overshadowed by controversy surrounding his colleague at Canterbury, Dr John Sentamu caused a stir when he was interviewed by GMTV on Good Friday, and suggested if the Church wished to modernise it had to move into pubs, if that’s where people were gathering.

This was greeted as a great revelation, though Dr Sentamu said he had done this himself when Bishop of Birmingham, and an Anglican priest has been pioneering similar initiatives in Bridlington. The latter got a nice item in this paper last year and featured on regional TV; it took the archbishop’s clout to get it on the national news agenda. I’m not sure what it is about human nature that means we need a “power figure” to advance an idea, no matter how big or important it is, though it may, I suppose, be one reason why a statue of Constantine sits near York Minster.

Whether pubs or other normally secular environments would always be suitable venues for religious activities is a matter for debate. The colourfully clad ladies I spotted processing somewhat unsteadily down Micklegate on Good Friday afternoon did not, at first glance, look like they were intent on religious observance, but who knows? They may have appreciated a companion in archbishop’s purple to add to the spectacle they presented.

l BBC bosses were clearly in tune with Easter’s themes of rebirth and resurrection, as they chose the period to revive two time travellers – Alex Drake in Ashes To ashes woke from a coma with a new hairstyle, and Dr Who returned with a new face and (eventually) a new Tardis interior.

The pseudo-1980s cop show wasn’t really much cop; even Gene Hunt was more morosely malevolent than magnificently monstrous, and the rest was much as before. Alex’s hairstyle was a great improvement, however.

Almost everything about Doctor Who was a great improvement on the sadly overblown Christmas farewell to former Time Lord David Tennant and chief writer Russell T Davies. The new principals, Matt Smith and Karen Gillan, were thoroughly engaging, the details of the plot were great (though the bare bones of the storyline, with Earth threatened by space police seeking an intergalactic criminal, were suspiciously similar to a Tennant series opener), and there were even some good jokes.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was a good start, though I was bit concerned to see a teaser of a Union Jack-emblazoned Dalek apparently taking part in the Second World War – doesn’t the BBC realise Dalek creator Terry Nation based the series super-villains on the Nazis?

Also returning was Have I Got News For You, but since the election is already hitting unprecedented levels of absurdity, one must assume Messrs Hislop and Merton are there to supply some sanity rather than satire.