Interconnect

Dear Mary... Q. My husband and I are planning to celebrate our 55th (emerald) wedding anniversary with a modest family party. We have verbally accepted a quotation for a finger buffet from a local caterer, but our grandson, who with his wife runs a small catering business in Birmingham, has expressed a wish to do the catering. Delighted as we are with this offer, we find ourselves in a bit of a quandary: we were hoping that this couple would be among our guests, and we don’t want them to be occupied in the menial task of preparing the buffet and clearing up afterwards. On the other hand, we don’t want to deprive them of the opportunity to promote their business and make a profit. What do you suggest, Mary?P.G.H., Colchester, Essex A.

Mmmm. Got lovely new mini-break brochure: Pride of Britain: Leading Country House Hotels of the British Isles. Marvellous. Going through all the pages one by one imagining Daniel and me being alternately sexual and romantic in all the bedrooms and dining-rooms.Bridget Jones's Diary Last weekend my husband and I went on a mini-break to Majorca. Two weeks before this we spent a long weekend in Whitby, with friends. Earlier this summer I attended a two-day hen weekend in Manchester, and next week my husband is off on a three-day mid-week break to Valencia for the famous annual tomato-throwing (sounds like most dinner times with my two-year-old, but apparently this is special). I'm hoping to fit in a visit to Sitges before the end of September.

The Spectator began by asking Berlusconi whether he has mended fences with Chancellor Schröder, after he likened the German Social Democrat MEP, Martin Schulz, to a Nazi camp commandant? It was I who was offended, my government and my country. I replied with a joke. I wanted to be humorous. The whole of the parliament laughed. My reply was taken and exploited against me. But you know what? It was a reply that was virtually impossible for me to resist because I once broadcast 120 episodes of Hogan's Heroes in which there was this Sergeant Schulz. You remember? I didn't even think about it. Schulz was shouting at me – no? And it just came to me off the cuff. I always try to be ironical in my speeches.

Impossible to estimate how much the Scots have enriched the Life of Man. They gave us the Telephone (sorry, wrong number), Penicillin (much better today, thank you, doctor), the Television (but there's nothing good on any more), and the Wandering Dipso (K'you spear us fufty peents, pal?). To this we must add their latest innovation: the weather-proof, bomb-proof, completion-proof building. The new Scottish Parliament is emerging, with Darwinian slowness, at the base of Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh. A pair of Y-shaped cranes stand over the scattered rubble, their huge limbs ladylike and prim, like fantastical herons dipping and pecking at the concrete. The award-winning architect, Enric Miralles, is as Scottish as they come, by the way, as long as they come from Spain.

An eagerly anticipated lunch-date with our sainted proprietor’s wife. A la page as always, Barbara wanted to try the restaurant above Mourad Mazouz’s blindingly chic nightclub Sketch in Conduit Street. The Lecture Room notoriously costs about a million a mouthful, but they have dreamed up some wonderful and weird ways of making you feel it’s worth it. There’s something called a ‘walking upstairs policy’, which means that no one is allowed to walk upstairs unless they are accompanied by a member of staff. I had arrived before Barbara, who was made to wait until someone could escort her up to join me, while I waited. A gobbledyspeak-trained comis brought some salty thingies to try ‘while you’re wasting your time’.

Those of us who worked at the Arts Council of Great Britain, some 40 years ago, were as often as not introduced, even by our own families, as being at or from 'the British Arts Council'. In vain did we explain that lumping these two institutions together was utterly inaccurate, that the Arts Council brought art from overseas to Britain while looking after art appreciation and practice in Britain, whereas the British Council promoted British culture abroad. The avoidance of personal publicity was a part of our ethos, but a nadir in our public relations was reached when my friend, colleague and fellow struggler at the Arts Council's headquarters at 4 St James's Square was introduced as 'Mr Colin Anson – from the British Legion'.

The 19th annual Parliamentarian of the Year awards, sponsored by The Spectator and by Zurich Financial Services, were presented by Michael Martin, MP, Speaker of the House of Commons, the guest of honour at the awards presentation luncheon held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, London. The guests were welcomed by Sandy Leitch, chief executive of Zurich Financial Services. The chairman of the judges, Boris Johnson, editor of The Spectator, read out the judges' choices and the reasons for them. Parliamentarian of the Year:The Rt Hon. Tony Blair, MPThe talents of this year's victor ludorum were first spotted at Fettes, where he was in the netball team, and played Mark Antony in Julius Caesar.