Leopard, spots, Daily Mail …

The laugh of the day is the heavy breathing Sue Reid in the Daily Mail. She has become aware of:

The Lancashire blacksmith’s son and leader of the Communist Party of Great Britain

and his malign influence over all things left-of-centre in Britain.

Let us all help Ms Reid with a rousing chorus:

Harry was a Bolshie, one of Stalin’s lads,
Till he was foully murdered by reactionary cads…

Ah, those were the days!

But it gets better!

Labour leaders Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock colluded with the Soviet communists to try to beat their ‘common enemy’, Margaret Thatcher.

and

the political ideology of so many of those who govern us today was shaped by the unspeakable communist creed of the Soviet Union.

Gosh! No bodice remained unripped!

There’s only a couple of problems there: most of us who’ve read the odd history could adequately speak the “communist creed of the Soviet Union”. Moreover, the “creed” seemed to change with remarkable rapidity between one generation of Soviet leaders and the next.

What’s more interesting is where Ms Reid came across this amazing intelligence. Was it a neck-and-crop race across the Arctic tundra, with wolves nipping at the troika every verst of the way? Then years of patient trawling through the archives of the former Soviet Union? Well, probably not: more likely she nipped into WH Smith and bought the current issue of The Spectator.

There she would have found an article by Pavel Stroilov, with “Additional reporting by Dasha Afanasieva.” Curiously, there is absolutely no acknowledgement of this in the Mail. Anyone wanting to by-pass Ms Reid and get the original Stroilov can do so on-line.

Some innocent fun can be had by comparing the two versions:

Stroilov:

On the whole, however, the communist infiltration of the T&G is hardly a joking matter: its influence in the Labour party was substantial. The decision to give Gordon Brown his first and only safe seat, Dunfermline East, was made by two T&G officials: Hugh Wyper, the regional boss and a Communist Party member, and Alec Kitson. This is not exceptional. Neil Kinnock, Tony Blair, Margaret Beckett, Harriet Harman, John Reid — to name just a few — were all T&G people who made their Labour party careers thanks to the union’s backing.

Reid:

It is not just the Left’s close connection with the Soviet Union, but the lasting influence of that connection that should concern us all…

The decision to give the young Scotsman [Gordon Brown] his first and only safe seat, Dunfermline East, was made by two TGWU senior officials – one of them was Jack Jones, the other the drunken Alec Kitson. Both were friends of the Kremlin.

The union’s patronage was ubiquitous. Neil Kinnock and Tony Blair, as well as Cabinet ministers Margaret Beckett, Harriet Harman and John Reid, were all sponsored by TGWU and made their Labour Party careers thanks to it.

Spot any coincidences?

There is one great similarity between the two (apart from being right-wing hatchet-jobs): both Stroilov and Reid agree on their single source:

Stroilov:

It is almost 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall — and still the truth keeps trickling out of Moscow. The Soviets, like the Nazis, were meticulous note-keepers and there is decades worth of material still to be uncovered. At first, only those who went through the filing cabinets could compile the untold stories of the USSR. But now that these records are being digitised, scrutinising them becomes a lot easier. And this is how I came across the extraordinary diaries of Anatoly Chernyaev.

For years he was the Soviet Union’s contact man with the West. But from the 1970s onwards he met the British politicians who went looking for favours behind the Iron Curtain — and recorded every encounter in his journal. He was a deputy in the Soviet International Department (a successor to the Comintern) and latterly an adviser to Gorbachev himself. His diaries in the Gorbachev era have been translated in Washington. But his liaisons with British politicians in the Cold War era have never been made fully public — until now.

Reid:

Just how deep the tentacles of communism reached into the heart of British government has now been revealed with the emergence of an extraordinary diary by Anatoly Chernyaev, the Soviet Union’s contact man with the West at the icy height of the Cold War.

Meticulously detailed and written by hand on lined notepaper, the diary has come to light in the U.S. National Security Archive.

Except that’s not quite true, in either case

Chernyaev’s diary has been available for some time. Extracts have been dribbling out of the American National Security Archives, courtesy of George Washington University, since May 2006.

The real question raised by Stroilov and little lap-dog Reid is: Why now?

As for the historical significance of Harry Pollitt, it lies less in any stamps issued by the Soviet, or war-ships named in his honour, and more in where he ended up:

He got up to the Pearly Gates, met Peter on his knees
‘May I speak to Comrade God I’m Harold Pollitt please …

Said Peter unto Harry: ‘Are you humble and contrite?’
‘I’m a friend of Lady Docker’s’, ‘Then OK. you’ll be alright!’ …

Alas, his time in the Elysian Fields was swiftly terminated:

One day as God was walking around the heavenly state
Who should he see but Harry chalking slogans on the gate…

They put him up for trial before the Holy Ghost
Charged with disaffection amongst the heavenly host …

The verdict it was guilty, said Harry ‘That is swell’
And he tucked his nightie ’round his knees and he floated down to hell …

A few more years have ended, now Harry’s doing swell
He’s just been made the people’s commissar for Soviet Socialist Hell!

In all truth, everybody on the British Left took Harry and the CPGB with more than a pinch of salt. By the ’50s they were a select body: those who made it in the unions did so by being effective for their members — and their political ties were well-known. Hardly a national menace there, unless one needed an instant bogeyman from whom to hang a headline. Earlier still, any promiscuity with the Red Shed laid one open to a flea in or a clip around the ear from that other T&G leftie, Ernie Bevin. Apart from anything else, it was well recognised that some half of the King Street stalwarts were also on the pay-roll of MI5.

As for a real traitor, well … there was the pre-War owner of the Daily Mail. Or, in the case of Kim “Stanley” Philby, he was working for the Observer. Or in the case of Anthony “Johnson” Blunt for Buckingham Palace.

So: that’s it then?

Another £25 billion (say it quickly, and it does still hurt so much) in quantitative easing and Bank Rate (yeah: Malcolm is a bit long in the tooth) held at half-of-one-per-cent.

The £25 billion will be dribbled out over the next quarter, gradually weaning the City off its appetite for the Bank’s green stuff.

The currency exchanges seemed to like it: a sudden leap in cable, which was cut back in the rest of the session. Sterling remains pretty buoyant against the Euro; unofficially there seems to be a 90p euro as an undeclared marker (always remembering that the Germans are keeping the ECB rate at 1% — to the grave distress of the Irish, the Spaniards and others). As soon as there are some signs of life in the British Patient, we may expect the Euro at 88p or better. The Euro-zone will then seriously be kicking London arse because that retains the benefits of the 12-13% sterling devaluation against the dollar, and something like a fifth against the Euro. In the present state of play, the Euro is looking over-valued (especially if you’re irish, Spanish …).

That’s the story so far. Time to nip down the boozer and toast the Bank of England in doubles? Well, yes and no.

In effect, the BoE’s MPC will likely be doing little but go through the motions for some considerable future. Once we are past the New Year, it’s going to be Election fever all the way to May. Any major shift (and any shift from 0.5% would be regarded as “major”) would be considered by one side or the other to be political.

Any in-coming administration after the General Election will inevitably “take steps”. If — heaven help us — it’s a Tory administration, the dirty washing needs to be done as soon as possible. That way, all the grime that can be invented gets blamed on the other lot. So, expect over-enthusiasm, as untried and inexperienced hands wrestle the levers of the political machine. Watch for a bumpy ride.

So, again, the BoE’s instinct will be to sit firm; and whisper discreet advice in any receptive ear.

All of which means that the half-per-cent rate will hold until past next summer, sterling will remain undervalued against the Euro, and British industry will enjoy any spin-off benefits and unaccustomed stability in interest rates.

Of course, if the ECB finds it can raise rates (particularly so if the Germans get the faintest whiff of inflation) that could very soon upset all kinds of apple carts. We can certainly expect more than a whiff of price inflation in the UK in 2010. It will start with the 2½% hike in VAT due on New Year’s Day (with the not-so-odd retailer inevitably “rounding upwards”). The world recovery will up the price of oil. Then the various budget tax increases … especially if the Tories get the chance to go for a 20% VAT rate. And so it goes.

Then, inevitably, unavoidably, the Fat Old Lady of Threadneedle Street will have to sing.

Discredit where it’s due

One comes close to admiration for Iain Dale’s unstinting efforts to burnish the jobbie (as he previously did with Dubya in the past — thus allowing Malcolm to reprise a favourite image, right). Dale’s latest brown-tonguing involves Cameron’s volte-face over his “cast-iron guarantee”.

Dale started his day with a second attempt to “prove” that Cameron never, ever — perish the thought — gave or implied such an assurance:

I’ve quoted [Cameron's original piece in The Sun] before, but seeing as though a good proportion either can’t read or choose to ignore what it says in favour of what you’d like to think it said, let’s have another look at it, shall we?

“Today, I will give this cast-iron guarantee: if I become PM a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations. No treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum.”

See that last bit? That’s the bit which people conveniently ignore – presumably deliberately, because it doesn’t fit their argument. Think about those words – “No treaty should be ratified”… let me spell it out for those who have their fingers in their ears and are shouting ‘la la la, can’t hear you’. No Treaty Should be Ratified means that a referendum should be held IN ADVANCE of a treaty being ratified.

What that amounts to is repeating Cameron’s Jesuitical equivocation over the distinction between an unsigned Treaty and a signed one — which has become Law, and so obviously is no longer a Treaty, you silly boy!

That quibble is so gob-smackingly, nut-crunchingly, self-deceivingly, left-field brilliant, Malcolm wishes he had previously appreciated such a philosophical gem. He would have deployed it and so avoided the need to allocate memory cells to the historical importance of the Treaties of Westphalia (1648), Paris (1815), Versailles (1919) and, oh!, so many more. Malcolm ruefully doubts the ploy would have impressed the examiners at Irish Leaving Certificate or the University of Dublin, however. Obviously they really “do different” (as left) at the University of East Anglia.

So, Malcolm suggests, let’s hear more from the original, unreconstructed Dave:

The final reason we must have a vote is trust. Gordon Brown talks about “new” politics.

But there’s nothing “new” about breaking your promises to the British public. It’s classic Labour.

And it is the cancer that is eating away at trust in politics. Small wonder that so many people don’t believe a word politicians ever say if they break their promises so casually.

Touché!

That “personal freshness” problem …

Dr Hilary Jones writes:

Body odour is never pleasant, and we’ve all been crammed on a train or been in a busy shopping centre and noticed the distinctive smell of stale sweat.

[picture from today's Times, page 13. As if nobody was taking notice of the well-known face -- though the face of the lady on the right tells a story. A similar staged image appears in many other of the prints.]

Cameron’s finger in the dyke?

Quite what Diddy Dave Cameron was hoping his 4 pm presser would achieve will have to wait until his memoirs. Two obvious possibilities are:

• With a single bound our hero was free! That has been the pattern of Dave’s many wizard wheezes to date.
• He saw himself as Hans Brinker by keeping a finger in the dyke.

Neither of those is, in the long term, a credible posture.

The first of those possibilities exists only in the cheapest and most sensational of stories: which is why it has apparently been bought by The Sun.

The second is equally a fiction. The weatherman cannot change the weather. No politico can stay the inexorable grinding tides of history. Cameron in government could not credibly argue that poorer, smaller nations should subsidize the UK’s “rebate”. If the UK is to be in and of Europe, we cannot maintain social and employment legislation aimed to give British industry an unfair advantage. Equally, British employees are not going to tolerate long conditions which grossly fail to match the norms across the Channel and the North Sea.

Louis MacNeice got it right:

It’s no go my honey love, it’s no go my poppet;
Work your hands from day to day, the winds will blow the profit.
The glass is falling hour by hour, the glass will fall forever,
But if you break the bloody glass you won’t hold up the weather.

Nothing that has been said today changes the pertinent assessment, in Sunday’s Observer, by Peter Oborne, in what ought to be a seminal piece:

For many, perhaps most, Conservative activists, the Lisbon treaty poses an existential threat to the British state: we cease to be subjects of the Queen and start to become citizens of Europe. Something ancient and of inordinate value will pass away.

This insight – by no means without truth and merit – poses a grave problem for David Cameron. His supporters will hardly be content for him simply to shrug his shoulders at this disaster. They will want him to take up the banner of freedom and national independence when Klaus lays it down. So David Cameron’s response when the Lisbon treaty is passed will pose a classic test of his leadership skills. On the one side, he needs to humour the Eurosceptics, an ever-more formidable force in the Tory party. On the other hand, he knows that, in practice, he can do nothing. This faintly humiliating balancing act is made very much more difficult by concessions that David Cameron has already made on the Lisbon question.

So, back to the first issue: the really hard bargaining for Cameron so far has been to keep Murdoch on side. The Sun magisterially now claims the exclusive right to absolve Cameron of his “cast-iron pledge”. For the record, what Cameron then said was:

I will give this cast-iron guarantee: if I become prime minister, a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations.

As recently as 10th October, Daniel Hannan was reciting that mantra in a Spectator piece, to assure us that Cameron was four-square solid and sea-green incorruptible. Hah!

Now Cameron, and The Sun, suggest Lisbon is no longer a Treaty: it is a European law: as unalterable as that of the Medes and Persians. Thus a formula of weaselling words was hammered out over a Wapping table, between a PR operative and the plenipotentiary of a media magnate. It papers over the cracks … for the time being.

… it was to Sun readers that David Cameron promised a referendum if that Constitution – and its shabby replacement, the Lisbon Treaty – remained unratified.

So we have more right than most to cast a cool eye over his decision to end that campaign.

But Mr Cameron is right.

Today, the treaty is a fact of life.

Europe can boast it has its own “legal personality”.

So who do we blame for this? Not Mr Cameron, who stuck by his original pledge.

There is little in Cameron’s 4 pm statement that was not in that Sun editorial. It makes one wonder what other Faustian bargains Cameron has made, and will continue to make, to keep Mephistopheles/Murdoch as cheer-leader.

The other issue is what next for the Tory Eurosceptics:

• Is their expressed fear of being outflanked by UKIP a genuine threat, or has this bugaboo been just a ploy?
• Are the Eurosceptics going to be bought off by this “sovereignty bill”? Even were this to become an Act, how much would survive the thorough mincing it would surely receive in the Supreme Court?
• Is the rabid Right merely biting tongues until after the Election (as seems to be the coded instruction from the likes of Tim Montgomerie)?

When a dyke bursts, survival depends on how much warning the potential survivors receive.

Wise heads in the Tory hierarchy should be raising the alarm forthwith.

Normal for Norfolk?

Read this opener, from Nick Britten for the Daily Telegraph. Read it very carefully (while relishing the archness of the word “enjoyed” therein):

Elizabeth Truss, the high-flying Conservative candidate embroiled in controversy following her affair with a former Tory front bencher, has been given two weeks to save her political skin.

The 100-strong membership of the South West Norfolk Conservative Association will vote on November 16th whether to deselect her in the light of an 18-month long relationship she enjoyed with the married MP Mark Field in 2004.

Now, that story has been running for some ten days. It’s caused some unpleasant spats out in the further reaches of Rightwingery.

As Malcolm has already commented, its main function is to point up the old adage that all the best Labour scandals involve money (for which, this time round, read “expenses’) while all the best Tory ones involve sex.

So be it.

Nothing surprising so far.

But … yet, the incredible … the South West Norfolk Conservative Association numbers just one hundred paid-up members?

For the record, South West Norfolk constituency runs all the way from the Fens, across Breckland, as far as Attleborough. It is not an “ultra-safe” constituency. Labour held it, up to 1964, by which time the decline of the NUAW, and the passing of radicals like Sidney Dye, collapsed the main supports for the Party. Gillian Shephard scaped home in 1997 with less than a 2,500 majority. In 2005 it was clear that the Lib Dems were making inroads: in 2010 it would be no great surprise to see them in second place. Wherever “Lord” Ashcroft is putting his millions, if the Tories want to forestall a further loss, they would be well advised to look hard and long at SW Norfolk.

With or without Ms Truss as the chosen one.

Once and for all …

There’s yet another of the Euroseptics — sorry, Eurosceptics (and, yes, that was Ted Heath’s joke originally — whinging on the comments to Nick Robinson’s eminently sane and sensible piece:

I DO think that [Cameron] – and the country – needs a Referendum, regardless of the Lisbon Treaty or any other agreements, just so we can find out, once-and-for-all, how the British people truly feel about this whole EU concept.

Thank you, Khrystalar @ 10:26am: don’t call us, we’ll call you. Perhaps.

Except …

We’ve already done that. Been there. Still got the pamphlets (if the tee-shirt rotted long ago). It was 6th June 1975. Two-to-one the Great British Public voted for EU membership. Curiously enough, the arguments then against membership (mainly coming from the Left) sounded very like those today coming from the Right. Try this one:

TUC General-Secretary Len Murray … remained adamantly opposed to the EEC. “Many of the most important decisions about our future can only be taken here in Britain,” he said.

Or, for real UKIPpery try the selected speeches of Tony Benn.

Malcolm went into the Referendum campaign a convinced anti-marketeer. He spoke from platforms, denouncing the whole Euro-thing. During the campaign, he did the politically unthinkable: he listened to the argument. At some point, he recognised it was a lost cause. He had to acknowledge he had been wrong. Come the day, he did not even use his vote. As Alcuin had it, twelve centuries gone, and dismissively as a matter of fact, Vox populi, vox dei.

But, of course, the matter will never be settled to the satisfaction of the lunatic fringes in either direction. Memories are short — political memories barely reach the intellectual capacity of a gold-fish. So, we are doomed to go through this febrile cycle in each and every generation.

Once more Malcolm is reminded of that sad, instructive story of the English tenor, singing at La Scala. His soaring aria was concluded in wholesale, deafening applause. The tenor bowed graciously, and went into a reprise. Again, the audience rose as one and demanded a repeat: encore! encore! After the third iteration, the tenor came to the front of the stage to express his gratitude; but demurred. Only the great Gigli had ever had a fourth encore at La Scala: that was a record he could not want to match. A voice from the Gods called down: You will do it again. And again. Until you get it right!

Last week, the New Statesman had a neat little fantasy by Dominic Sandbrook (who was a mentor of Malcolm’s Pert Young Piece, while both were features of Sheffield University’s History Department). In it Sandbrook invented an alternative history: what if the 1975 Referendum had gone the other way?

Today, no household is without its beloved New Zealand butter and Canadian cheese, yet it is a chilling thought that if Britain had stayed in the EEC, we might have become a nation of Brie and Gorgonzola addicts. And if we had remained in thrall to Brussels, we would never have had the chance to forge such strong links with Europe’s other freedom-loving nations, now our political and cultural partners – our Scandinavian cousins in Iceland and Norway.

Indeed, if the decision had gone the other way, many of our 21st-century tastes and habits might be very different. Would Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim still attract hundreds of thousands of British holidaymakers? Would Reykjavik be a Mecca for spa lovers and stag parties? Would the National Gallery’s Edvard Munch exhibition have been such a blockbuster? Would the RSC put on its sell-out Ibsen season every winter? And for that matter, would pickled herring still have become the nation’s favourite comfort food?

There are always those who think that we would have been better off staying in the EEC, and that today’s Britain, with its environmentally friendly monarchy, its entrenched social democracy and its taste for meatballs, is all a bit dull. But it’s surely a small price to pay for trains that run on time, redistributive taxes and the world’s leading whaling industry. And who wants to be like Italy, anyway?

Err … yes.

B.F. (Cantab)

Apart from the icy Fenland winds of mid-winter, the matter of selection is another of Malcolm’s irritating, long-standing disputations with the University of Cambridge.

It goes like this:

Once upon a time there was a truly outstanding applicant coming their way. He was accepted by one of the venerable Cambridge colleges on the basis of gaining two just E grades in his A-levels: then, as now, the very basic level of higher-education qualification.

The applicant’s personal problem was he didn’t know whether he was being offered a place on the basis of his sporting excellence (he was also a cricketer and a footballer of some quality) or that of his intellect. When another, provincial, red-brick university set the standard higher, he went for the challenge, and surpassed it.

The bod-in-question went on to pioneer a new academic sub-discipline. He once told Malcolm there had been only four people in the UK capable of assessing his Ph. D. thesis: today he presents papers to conferences attended by thousands.

Probably no loss to Cambridge and its prestige; or for the bod-in-question. Possibly, had he the additional kudos of “Cantab” after his titles, things might have moved a bit faster, his resourcing been a trifle more generous. Perhaps, too, the quiz-machines in the pubs of Cambridge might have set the bar a trifle higher: the bod-in-question reckoned to tour the drinking dens of his adopted city and finance his drinking habit (and more) thereby. He was, indeed, banned from at least one hostelry because of this: the fleecing of the machines, that is, not the imbibing.

Whether he would have remained the all-round good egg he is, well, that is an imponderable. He might have acquired the usual Cambridge chip worn on the Cambridge shoulder. He might have ended up cheering on Cambridge United, at home and away.

If there is a “moral” here, it is not to trust others’ notion of “excellence” above all else. And to find one’s own way in the world.

Virgin on the ridiculous

[A posting which should have gone up on Tuesday]

There’d been the odd drop in the connection — an odd hour here and there. Irritating, but unusual. Resented, but forgivable. Then the whole Virginmedia shebang shut down: ‘phone, cable, TV feed.

• The Pert Young Piece’s iPhone accessed the Virginmedia status page, which smugly reported no incidents, no problems, no maintenance, nationally or locally. So the fun began. There is, allegedly, a free number on Malcolm’s Virginmedia mobile with which to report faults. The recorded message said merely and tersely that the service was inoperative.
• The 0800 number, accessed at mobile phone rates, amounted to an interminable list of “enter-the-number” options. All led to a lengthy recorded announcement telling granny how to suck eggs. Eventually there came the promise of a real human. Alas, no: Virginmedia’s idea of music. Which went on, and on … Until patience, and the thought of the bill, meant termination.
• The 0845 number? Ditto.

After something like fourteen hours, all services were restored.

Malcolm promptly fired off an email of complaint and enquiry. There is a promise of a reply within 48 hours.

Sure enough, the reply arrived the following day. No help could be offered without full details.

This was odd, because Malcolm had supplied his telephone number and email address (both Virginmedia). However, playing the game to the end, Malcolm replied: this time supplying absolutely every possible jot-and-tittle of address, telephone numbers (both land-line and mobile) account number … the works. It is now nine days, and still counting without any response.

The local newspaper indicated that others were in the same boat: two streets away, the main cable had been incinerated or nuked or whatever.

Fair enough. Such stuff does happen.

Monday morning of this week was Malcolm’s time in the dentist’s chair. Returning, he switched on his mobile to find a voice-mail waiting. The visiting gardener at Redfellow Hovel had taken a spade through the feed. Once again, there was no phone, no net, no cable tv.

Now the feed was laid by Virginmedia’s predecessor but two: then trading (unsuccessfully) as Cable London. The cretin of an installer had laid the feed diagonally across the soil of the front garden, then put it out of sight a couple of inches down. No protection, no armouring, no conduit: a bare cable just below the surface. The mind boggles that it lasted this long (but also tells how assiduously Malcolm gardens).

Can things get worse?

Oh, yes, indeedy.

Virginmedia are unable to send out an engineer for a full week.

As the character in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath had it (or something very close): every time I hear the word “service”, I wonder who’s getting screwed.

Malcolm is currently exploring alternatives to Virginmedia.

This is also why blogging service may be somewhat haphazard in the near future.

 

Enjoying the 25-hour day

Only once a year. Perhaps an hour should be chopped off Saturdays; and awarded to Sundays on a regular basis.

The first intention, drafted on Friday, was Saturday mid-day in Kew Gardens, and a leisurely afternoon in one of the gastro-pubs. The damping dreck floating earthward on Saturday quelled that intention. So, having drained the central-heating and refitted the valves in the Pert Little Piece’s bedroom on Saturday, what about trying for it on Sunday?

Sunday dawns, technically an hour earlier than usual. Hmm: looks a bit dull. Perhaps not. Let’s have a pub lunch in Greenwich instead. Haven’t been there for a while. Agreed.

Catch the 134 bus. Decant onto the Northern Line. Umm! Archway station is closed. On to Tufnell Park. Y’know Malcolm can now count the number of times he’s used Tufnell Park on one finger.

Hello! What’s this? The Docklands Light Railway is suspended on the Lewisham branch. Rapid reconsideration of route required.

Right! Got it! Northern Line to London Bridge, South-Eastern train to Greenwich or Maze Hill.

Worked like a charm. The Lady and Malcolm amble down from Maze Hill to Thames-side. If any pile deserved, was made, needed to become the site of a prestigious university, it surely is the former Royal Naval College, of Charles II vintage. Why not invite any of the great universities of the world to set up a constituent college here? Alas, it got the University of Greenwich.

At the river, the Lady and Malcolm encounter the kind of cerulean blue sky that would have given John Constable palpitations. Sharp right turn into Crane Street brings our intrepid expeditionaries to The Yacht. This has to be one of the most divinely-located grog-shops in the galaxy. Unfortunately, today, there’s a block booking. Food would be considerably delayed. The Lady is for feeding.

Swift retread to the Trafalgar Tavern. Resolution: early repeat mid-week visit.

Now, the Trafalgar is not quite as good as it gets; but it’s pretty adjacent. Things, at first, look grim: pint of Adnams? Sorry, no: it’s off.

Now, from previous experience, Malcolm has learned to trust the Guv’nor’s opinion here. So it’s Sharp’s of Rock as a good alternative. Not only Doom Bar but — Me Hercule! — Sharp’s Own! Put Malcolm down for at least a couple, instantly. Oh, and a bottle of Chilean Cabernet.

Now, if Malcolm had to declare his preferences of a lifetime, they would lead with Adnams of Southwold (the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree); and, for whisky, Glenmorangie (smooth: an taste inherited from his discriminating mother) and Jura (for something more peaty), with Highland Park as a close runner up. West of the Irish Sea, Black or Green Bush, depending on who’s buying.

The truly perceptive will have noticed a common factor: all of these producers are coastal. The salt waters is in their veins.

As the Lady in his life and Malcolm wait for one cod-and-chips, and a steak-and-ale-pie, they ruminate on this great discovery.

A leisurely, extended sit ensued, occupying a window-table, in that great bow window, watching the changing tide. Scanning towards Limehouse in one direction, and to Blackwall in the other, it is hard to identify a single building of distinction in the panorama of the North Bank. Surely, considering the billions expended, here was one of the great architectural opportunities of the late twentieth century wasted.

The Sunday papers dissected, opinions on the world exchanged, food digested, the extra glass consumed, it became time for homeward.

Whereupon the Thames Clipper hove in view, and delivered our excursionists to Embankment pier. Across the road and into the Northern Line.

Now: coming down a new departure point was Tufnell Park. On the way back, why not? Dare they? They did!

They left the train at Mornington Crescent (another first) and across Hampstead Road for the 134 bus.

Home, to find that all the clocks needed altering. And the pre-set oven had worked perfectly.