Diary – 12 February 2005

As the result of a hip operation (arthritis, but I encourage people to think it was made necessary by a riding accident), I won’t be able to follow hounds again before the ban comes into force next Friday. I used to hunt as a child but gave up the chase in my ‘Ho Ho Ho Chi-Minh, we shall fight and we shall win’ chanting and marching days — by which time I had come to share Oscar Wilde’s feelings about ‘the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable’. But once the bandwagon for the ban started to roll in earnest I found myself with Voltaire and joined the fray once again in the belief that even unspeakables have rights. Anyway I loved it all over again: the waiting, the listening, the uncertainty, the unknown, the freedom, the thrill of the fear, the changing landscape — and the company. I chose to keep all this to myself because I had to chair endless debates between the warring parties on Radio Four’s Any Questions? and Any Answers? as well as my ITV Sunday programme.