“Clays, Claret and Cognac Cruise 2019 review”

Well, that’s a sight that will live with me for a long time, that of our esteemed business editor, Martin Vander Weyer, being knocked almost completely over by the ferocious recoil of an ancient and cacophonous blunderbuss. He was vainly trying to get to grips with the weapon in a doomed effort to pepper a sizeable balloon. The rubber sphere in question might only have bobbed a few short metres away on gloomy grey waters but it’s fair to say that never has a target been so safe from harm and never has a man been so profoundly – albeit temporarily – deafened.

We were aboard Thames Sailing Barge Will, moored up in the middle of the river at Thamesmead, just beyond the Thames Barrier. Here, under the hilarious but patient tutelage of shoot captain John Hargreaves, 40 or so hardy Spectator readers blasted merrily away at scores of clays with a pump action shotgun, an up-and-over, a side-by-side and said blunderbuss.