A perfect day in Pall Mall

That beyond-superlative annual Beano, the Club’s Christmas Lunch, occurred yesterday, and it was the jolliest time amongst a recent trend of deeply unimpressive days. Is it just me, or do the days draw in much like some Mordor caricature? A sense of hopelessness hangs like some pall over London life. My spies told me Harvey Nicks was bereft of known life forms unless you count Russian hoods and escaping Alawites - even Harrod’s Christmas windows looked like a monument to the Death By Beige art movement. Perhaps their reputation managers have suggested muted might be best.

Maybe it’s just the relentless monotonal nasal whine of the Government on their puritanical pursuit and eradication of anything that might appear reasonable, helpful or sensible in Common Sense terms. Farming, Planning, countryside, urban sprawl, turning off electricity; paying for wind power that can’t be generated because it can’t be stored or utilised, calling it a civil service when it denies the concept of nominative determinism in those first two words alone and on and on and on….

There were three key bright spots in the entire day yesterday.