My holiday from the news

We are all supposed to remember where we were when we heard that Mrs Thatcher had resigned (my mother rang me while I was having a late breakfast). But I will always have a much more vivid memory of where I was when I heard Boris Johnson had called it a day. I was at a mountain refuge in Andorra when a Dutch hiker told me: ‘I’ve just spoken to my wife and she tells me your Boris Johnson has resigned.’ It turned out to be four days after the actual event. Between Boris appearing at his Downing Street lectern and me hearing about it I had managed to walk 100 miles across three countries, scale nearly a Mount Everest-worth of mountain passes and survive in my skimpy tent the foulest thunderstorm I have ever known.

To be about the last Briton to find out that the Prime Minister had quit is perhaps a bit embarrassing for someone who writes about politics.