Ducks and bills

Imperial Treasure is a restaurant in the part of St James’s where Leopold von Hoesch, the German ambassador to George V, buried his dog Giro after Giro electrocuted himself by eating a cable. (Everyone is a food critic. Giro was merely an unlucky one.) And this seems apt. Because it’s rare to see people in St James’s these days. Dog bones and tourists and BBC crews shooting dramas in which actors are spying or arguing about politics are multiple. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Benedict Cumber-batch pretending to be Liz Truss pretending to be Josip Tito.

But not real people. They have all gone, presumably to Zone 3. Or they have died of Brexit-related ennui and despair. Not that this is a column about alienation disguised as a restaurant review. I would never do that to you. The celebrity duck will come later. It is waiting for its close-up a few paragraphs on.