Vicarious pleasure

[dc]P[/dc]Post-spad life, it’s always a bit weird encountering former colleagues still in Whitehall. I know the game, but I’m not a player anymore. Between battles with Cabinet Office vetters about book content, I try to cheer on my erstwhile colleagues either in the media or in person. At dinner of steak and salad with two spad friends – one in a department, one who works in No 10 – I sense the return of the adrenaline, pumping away again as they regale me with the trials with which they are daily dealing. I wonder if I miss the life they lead, and I think I probably do.  But I also suspect shares in Gaviscon have plummeted, as I don’t ever seem to need my nightly swig these days.

Border skirmishes

Lunch á trois at the Irish Embassy with the ambassador Adrian O’Neill and his deputy Gerald Angley. Adrian tells me how, having flown from London to Dublin for his holiday, the Irish regulations required Aisling and him to quarantine for two weeks, only for the O’Neills to be slapped with a further three weeks as their home county, Kildare, was put into regional lockdown. I decide not to tell Adrian that – quite within the regulations – I flew from London to Belfast to see family, later taking the train to Dublin, heading on to Waterford with a political friend, Frank Kennedy. We had a week’s welcome respite in the beautiful village of Lismore. And as I travelled …