My great friend Stefan Lindblom arrived on a visit from Stockholm. Stef used to manage Richard James on Savile Row and is now working in Sweden. At the same time I had some friends staying at the Berkeley Hotel.

Ollie Kieran Jones joined us for dinner at the Dean Street Townhouse...where we celebrated Stefan's birthday with the classic dish of mince and potatoes. Hamlets of Regent Street and Westminster Abbey did not disappoint us in the build up to Christmas.

Craig Brown did a fantastic reading of his new book about remarkable moments in history when the most improbable people meet each other. Craig is very bright and funny with a brilliant delivery. I sat with his wife, Frances Walsh and with Olinda Adeane who had driven down from Suffolk having forgotten her wallet and a kind stranger in Finchley put £20 of petrol in her car...