Morning:
8°c
What is the correct etiquette for swine flu? To run a mile, don a face mask or KBO (keep buggering on), as Winston Churchill advised? I hadn't really given it much thought until Monday night when I telephoned a colleague.
He told me his daughter is a pupil at Alleyn's school in Dulwich, where five pupils have been diagnosed with swine flu.
Not only that but he had taken 10 of her school friends out to dinner at a restaurant over the weekend and half of them stayed for a sleepover.
Did I panic? Hell, no. Well, hell, yes, when two minutes into our conversation he started coughing and spluttering. Was he trying to wind me up?
I was quite keen to put him in quarantine but he insisted on coming into work yesterday. James sits only two feet away from me. All weekend I had been dismissing swine flu as an apocalyptic scare story; now I had got my comeuppance.
If I do contract the virus maybe it will be no bad thing: I might develop some resistance to the more virulent strain expected this autumn. I could even be like one of those absurd characters in the BBC drama Survivors.
I have since noticed that some of my colleagues are keeping their distance. It is as if we are part of an unofficial exclusion zone.
At least there are upsides to being a social pariah. You are left in relative peace and quiet.
• I had my car broken into at the weekend — not in London but in hideously white Wiltshire. I went for a walk in the country and returned to find my rear passenger window smashed in.
At first I thought nothing had been taken, which depressed me enormously. Was this just a petty act of vandalism done out of spite? They hadn't even bothered to purloin Stanley Johnson's memoirs, which were lying on the back seat.
Only the next day, when I got dressed to play tennis, did I realise my gym kit was missing.
My spirits soared. At least this crime had a purpose. My modicum of faith in human nature was restored.
• Angela Hartnett has relaxed the dress code in her restaurants, Murano and York and Albany, in order not to deter punters.
Even hoodies are acceptable, although she does draw the line at bikinis. She wouldn't have been able to get away with such nonsense at her former establishment, the Connaught Hotel, where the dress code is taken as seriously as the food.
When I dined there recently, I was delighted to see that my neighbour was sporting a pince-nez.
We should encourage people to dress up, not dress down. I am not averse to dining next to bikini-clad women so long as they wear a pince-nez.
