The scent of sex

Towards the end of his life, John Betjeman was asked during a television interview if he had any regrets. Ravaged by Parkinson’s disease he tremblingly replied, ‘Not enough sex.’ The effect was at once comic, touching and desperately sad — like his best poems, in fact — and his words have haunted me ever since.

From what you read in the public prints, you might think that anyone who writes for The Spectator is endlessly at it, that condoms are supplied gratis with each miserly pay cheque, and that once this column is completed I will be taking my pick from any number of admiring lovelies.

Not a bit of it. All the action seems to be reserved for those in, ahem, senior positions, while your lowly columnist is left like a penniless child standing forlornly on the pavement and gazing longingly through the window of a temptingly stocked sweet shop.