Cabbage

Had a work do yesterday. On a Sunday. But it turned out nice. It was the gala dinner for the Independent Booksellers conference, at Warwick University.

Gyles Brandreth was the star turn. He spoke stirringly about the value of ... independent booksellers, funnily enough, and told a few tales from his diaries, published by us and entitled Something Sensational to Read on the Train.

He described a lovely episode when he was on Lord Longford's Pornography Commission, along with an Archbishop, two judges, a Rabbi and Cliff Richard. Lord L gets out two carrier bags of utterly filthy stuff and "We spent an hour or two going through it. We'd flick through the pages going tut tut tut ... oh look, Rabbi - here's one of yours..."

And he apparently overheard Prince Philip saying to the Queen in the royal box of the variety show: "Oh look, Cabbage, they're doing something called The Full Monty. That'll be some sort of tribute to El Alamein. Marvellous".