Since early manhood I have been trying to become a better person: prudent, dutiful and punctilious about my responsibilities. Alas, without much success. In moments of desperation I have called upon the Lord to give me the strength to overcome my weaknesses. I have struggled hard but my bad habits persist.

A grim prospect stares me in the face. What will I say, what explanations offer, when the final trumpets sound. How will I get past the pearly gates?

Of the writer and dramatist Simon Raven, who died recently, his obituary in the Guardian started off like this: "The death of Simon Raven, at the age of 73 after a stroke, is proof that the devil looks after his own. He ought by rights to have died of shame at 30, or of drink at 50. Instead he survived to produce 25 novels..." The obituary went on to list his literary achievements and also to recount the highlights of his life of debt and dissipation. "His considerable earnings," we are informed, "went on food, drink, travel, gambling and sex..." The judicious reader will get the picture: gloom-and-doom formed no part of Raven's view of life. You are inclined to think that someone like him may well bluff his way past the pearly gates.

I can only look with envy at a life lived thus to the full. My failings are of the small, not the swashbuckling kind: sloth, selfishness and a love of indolence. In my 20s I was much given to thoughts of being involved in great causes and of manning the barricades. I loved the sound of this word, barricades, and would throw it into conversation at the slightest opportunity. Now I find that my reserves of highmindedness are not what they used to be.

My eyes are still capable of becoming wet if I read a moving story or listen to a rousing piece of music. At such moments I am transported to a different world: a world of make-believe and romance, usually false because it is a product of day-dreaming and not anything real. But mention of worthy causes leaves me cold probably because I have seen too many worthy causes transmuted, as if by magic, into personal gain. I would not have minded this alchemy had I shared some of the profits. Since I clearly have not, I find myself slipping into cynicism.

But regarding the pearly gates, would someone like Simon Raven really like to go past them? Would the perfect world beyond them appeal to a scapegrace like him? Ordered hours, straight avenues, permanently wise conversation, wine that causes no hangover, houris perfect in all respects, goodness and light abounding everywhere - these are the rewards awaiting the man or woman who has eschewed worldly temptation and kept the devil at arm's length. Those worthy of these rewards will constitute the highest circle of the elect when the final sums are counted.

But what about lesser souls who, while assured of a place in heaven because of something in their lives finding favour with the All-powerful, may yet be tormented by the bad habits acquired during their earthly sojourn? How will they adjust to the perfection of the cypress-lined pathways where gravitas and good order rule? Gypsies becoming staid and not dancing, Cleopatra forgetting her winning ways, Ghalib keeping healthy hours, the great Hafiz not sighing for his Turkish beauty (the one who lived in Shiraz), Falstaff not getting into a brawl in a tavern - these images fit no received conception of paradise.

In his short story The Celestial Omnibus - reading which, for some reason, always brings tears to my eyes - E. M. Forster gives a glimpse of heaven and of some of the personalities residing there. Amongst them is Mrs Gamp, the nurse with a strong partiality for gin from the Dickens' masterpiece, Martin Chuzzlewit. Mrs Gamp drinks her gin on the sly and because of the quantities she takes her nose is perpetually red. But she is a 'character' which is why she is in paradise along with Achilles, Sir Thomas Browne and the other figures whom the boy-hero of the story meets when he alights from the Celestial Omnibus.

And in an essay which has long been a favourite of mine, Likes and Dislikes, this is what James Agate, English journalist and essayist of the first half of the last century, has to say of his idea of heaven: "There must be a paradise for the simpletons as for the picked spirits...I want a Valhalla which shall not be a palace, but a home. I think I could trust Lamb to make a sufficient welcome, though it is to Falstaff I should look to discourse of honour in a strain bearable to soldier ears. Nectar and abrosia may be good taking, but there must be familiar grog and laughter and good-fellowship. I want a heaven in which horses shall be run, and the laying of odds allowed a sinless occupation." There you have it - a convivial and inviting heaven in which time shall not hang heavy and the shadows of ennui are kept at bay.

But Agate is even more demanding: "I want not only the best the celestial architects may contrive in the way of saloons, but I want the atmosphere of bar-parlours; I want pipes of clay and pint-pots of jasper, common briars and spittoons of jade."

Only in one particular do I disagree with him. Why should the place he describes be only for simpletons and not for picked spirits? Ghalib would feel at home there and so would Hafiz and Falstaff. Imagine the revelry and singing in a celestial saloon where such diverse characters congregated. Who would be the master of ceremonies? By turns Ghalib and Hafiz. Come to think of it, even Shakespeare would far prefer something close to a bawdy house to spend his evenings in than a temple dedicated to the discussion of virtue and morality.

Who would sing at these celestial suppers? Take your pick, for each of us has his or her favourite singers. But I would bet on Saigol to do the honours and when the night was far advanced snatches from Wagner - played by an orchestra waiting in the wings.

At the foundation of all art lie similar qualities: gusto, enthusiasm, clarity and imagination. Poets, musicians, singers - no matter which age they come from or in what language they have expressed themselves - belong to the same brotherhood. In heaven will reign a hierarchy of excellence and not one graded according to time and place. Ghalib and Shakespeare will not be strangers to each other. Nor at such an assembly will Captain Pistol's rodomontade be out of place.

These be good humours, indeed! Shall pack-horses, And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia, Which cannot go but thirty mile a day, Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals, And Trojan Greeks? Nay, rather damn them with King Cerberus; and let the welkins roar. Shall we fall foul for toys?

This speech comes in a quarrel between Ancient Pistol and Mistress Doll Tearsheet, with Falstaff watching the proceedings before pitching in, at the Boar's-head Tavern in Eastcheap. Ever heard of comparisons between caesars and cannibals or of Trojan Greeks? But the rhetoric is splendid and puts Pistol by the side of Mrs Gamp as one of the denizens of paradise.

There's one problem, however. Heaven is for perfect people while some of the heroes I have mentioned are far from perfect. They can fit only into a region somewhere between heaven proper and the eternal fires below. The outskirts of heaven: that's where most of the swaggerers will reside, where late hours will be kept, swords will occasionally be drawn and the convivial spirit will last long into the night.

If I had a choice in the matter that's where I would like to be.