My wife has just returned from a cruise on Cunard’s Queen Anne.

It was booked last year and I was supposed to go with her and another couple, two friends with whom we regularly go on holiday, but I had to pull out for reasons not unconnected with a previous cruise in July when I was forced to make an unscheduled pit stop in the ship’s medical department.

According to The Times, ‘Almost two thirds of British drivers polled by Allianz, the insurance company, said they would now prefer physical buttons and dials in their cars instead of the now ubiquitous touchscreen “infotainment” systems.’

On this, I’m with the majority. My current car was 12 months’ old when I bought it in 2021 but the actual model was launched in 2017 and it has every dial and button I need to alter the temperature and the air-conditioning, operate the heated seats, adjust the wing mirrors, and so on.

I was delighted to catch up with Dan Donovan in Nottingham this week.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, some of his paintings are currently being exhibited at The Drawing Room Gallery in the city centre.

I was very sorry to hear that James Lindesay-Bethune, 16th Earl of Lindsay, died on October 9.

I’m late to this because I missed the obituary published by the Telegraph two weeks ago and only found out this morning when The Times published an obituary in today’s edition.

Speculation ahead of tomorrow’s Budget statement suggests there will be few, if any, major surprises, which would be par for the course for a government that seems unable or unwilling to make any important decisions this side of the next general election.

Good Morning Britain presenter Richard Madeley was spot on yesterday when he and Susanna Reid interviewed the prime minister and Madeley suggested that many of Andy Burnham’s recent pronouncements were no more “kite-flying” to gauge the response.

Private Eye celebrated two milestones recently - the magazine’s 65th birthday and the 40th anniversary of Ian Hislop’s tenure as editor.

I’m the last person who should criticise someone for staying in the same job for decades, but it does seem a bit odd that a magazine that was founded in 1961 to mock and hold to account the post war Establishment is edited by someone who, in 2026, comes across as a rather obvious member of our current ruling ‘elite’, a self-confessed “remoaner” whose vocal opposition to Brexit demonstrates how out of touch he is with many ‘ordinary’ people.

Further to my previous post about Lord Harris of High Cross, founding director of the Institute of Economic Affairs, who died 20 years ago this week, I wonder what Ralph would have made of recent developments at the IEA.

It’s not my business, and I don’t want to stir the pot, but following the revelation last night of yet another significant departure, I can’t help ask, what’s going on?

Lord Harris, founding director of the Institute of Economic Affairs following its launch in 1955, and chairman of Forest from 1987 to 2006, died 20 years ago this week.

On December 10, 2024, on what would have been his 100th birthday, I posted a tribute. Now, 20 years after he died, aged 81, it seems appropriate to repost it: