Wine

Foolish me. I could have been writing this by the shore of Lake Trasimene, with only one problem: how to transmit it to London. Last time I stayed in the delightful house there, the technology was still in the era of Hannibal’s victory. There was no wifi, only spasmodic mobile-phone reception, and the nearest English newspapers were 50 miles away. ‘Where ignorance is bliss…’ Instead, I stayed in London to work out what was happening. As I say, folly. After two fruitless weeks, I have not even identified the questions, let alone the answers. There have been compensations: one great Test match, and very likely more to follow. Steve Smith — the Australians are fortunate that his extraordinary stance was not coached out of him.

My host twinkled sardonically. ‘We’re bound to be discussing Boris. So what’s the right wine?’ I suggested a bunker-busting Australian Shiraz, preceded by an alluring, minxy champagne: cuvée Madame Claude. ‘No, we need something intellectual, to bring perspective.’ ‘That sounds like Graves, perhaps a Pessac-Leognan.’ ‘Got it in one. Came across a couple of bottles the other day. La Mission Haut-Brion ’64 — the year Boris was born.’ In personality, the bottles were everything that a mature claret ought to be, with no resemblance to Boris.

Rose is the right choice Sir: Every Wednesday for the past nine years, it has been my privilege to attend the lunchtime Eucharist services in the Parliamentary Chapel, conducted by the Speaker’s Chaplain Rose Hudson-Wilkin. These routine acts of worship are not public, but are attended by parliamentary staff, MPs and peers. Central to them are Rose’s homilies and prayers, which are spiritual life-support to those of us who serve and navigate our increasingly fraught politics.

We were in a club, discussing Norman Stone, recently departed, over a meal that he would have enjoyed. Norman divided opinions. This manifested itself in his obituaries. Professor Sir Richard Evans summed up for the prosecution. He cited Norman’s failure to build on his early scholarly promise and his chronic neglect of academic duties. He concluded by quoting an old adversary of Norman’s, who described him as ‘amoral’. This is a difficult verdict to refute. Yet it is only part of the picture. He won the enduring affection of most of his best pupils, despite — or because of — his unorthodox methods. In Norman’s Cambridge days, an earnest young man turned up for his first supervision. No Stone. Next week, ditto.

Cricket is the most gracious of games. County grounds in the lee of cathedrals, village greens in the perfect setting of trees and a pub, and not far from the parish church: even if the match will not be over in time for evensong, there is more than a hint of Dearly Beloved, a phrase which captures so much of English civilisation. Cricket is an intellectual game. It baffles Americans. Try explaining that a Test can last for five days and then end in a draw — which may well be the right outcome, morally and aesthetically. Think of Gavaskar’s immortal match in 1979. Any other ending would have been much less satisfying. Cricket engenders humour. At his best, Cardus is up there with Wodehouse, MacDonald Fraser (in the McAuslan books) and even Waugh.

A book, a bottle, a bower set in an ancient garden: you think that if you walked round the right corner, there would be England, putting manure on the roses. Kipling reminds us that gardening is hard work and that beauty depends on bent backs. True enough, but they also serve who only sit and admire. There was a further contrast between hard work and sedentary admiration, for the book was the first volume of Kenneth Rose’s journals: the easiest of reads, yet the product of hard labour. Kenneth was an exemplar of his craft. There has never been a more meticulous journalist. If only the same were true of those who edited the volume.

Q. I was invited to birthday drinks in London. On my way there the name of someone I haven’t heard from for months flashed up on my mobile. My instinct was not to answer — I’d heard the host of the party had gone off this woman and thought it best not to answer in case the woman asked what I was doing that night. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings if she’d been excluded. Nor did I want to lie. However, on arrival at the party my host told me that all was now well between him and her and she’d been invited but couldn’t come. When I rang her the next day, she said she’d been calling to say she was sorry she wouldn’t be seeing me that night. Mary, how could I have handled this better? — Name and address withheld A.

During the Middle Ages, some of the monastic halls which evolved into Oxbridge colleges allowed their younger inmates to indulge in jocundus honestus after the evening meal. There is nothing monastic about the clubs around St James’s, least of all at their dining tables. But there is still plenty of jocund. Honestus? That is another matter. The other evening, in a gathering well-equipped with bottles and glasses, someone remarked that we were still in the last lap of Lent and then asked an improbable and unexpected question: ‘So what have you given up, Anderson?’ I was pleased with my reply: ‘Hope.

Three tribal Tories had gathered for a convivial glass, and also a consolatory one. One quoted Huskisson’s verdict after Goderich’s brief and worthless premiership. ‘Never surely was there a man at the head of affairs so weak, undecided and utterly helpless.’ Well, the female sex has now caught up. I said that at least she had refuted Hopkins. ‘No worst, there is none.’ As long as Theresa May is in charge, there could always be a worst. The terrible premier has out-gloomed the Terrible Sonnets. We were hiding away in a club, hoping not to meet any foreigners. Not that any of us is in the least xenophobic. One chap has a house in France; another regularly takes a place in Italy. Our affection for abroad goes well beyond its food and its bottles.

Acouple of lawyers were disagreeing about a matter which could become increasingly relevant. Could a sitting president pardon himself? But there was a further aspect to this question. A friend of mine who has known Mr Trump for 20 years and who likes him detects a weakening in his mental powers. One of our number was a distinguished neurologist. Pressed to overcome his intellectual scrupulousness about television diagnosis, he thought it not impossible. So are we dealing with dementia, or is the President of the United States just demented? Might it be early stage Alzheimer’s, or merely chronic Trump-heimer’s?