The party’s over . . .

My last week in London felt like the end of a school term — bittersweet. I was glad to be flying off to the sun, but sad to leave good friends and very good times behind. Mind you, the last night, that of the Speccie summer party, descended into farce when my Low life colleague and I were photographed at 5 a.m. having a spirited discussion about the human condition. Jeremy wrote about it last week but he chose to forget certain details. Both he and I had been boozing for at least ten hours, but thankfully had not started until after we were presented to a very gracious and friendly Prime Minister. When a driver pitched up to pick me up for the airport I was in a bad way. Tim Hoare, whose house Jeremy, Charlie Glass, Andrei Navrosov and I had invaded, offered his driver to take Clarke to a hotel.