Drinks after a central London carol service turned into a sort of dream sequence. First my old friend Michael Trend shimmered into view, wearing a dinner jacket, as he’d been singing in the choir.

Now I don’t think Michael ever did anything wrong. He was MP for Windsor and designated his house in London as his main residence, drawing allowances for its upkeep. But someone made a row and he paid back £90,000 and didn’t stand again as an MP. This was years before the MPs’ expenses scandal was exposed by The Daily Telegraph, when it found out most of them were at much worse practices. Michael, it seemed to me, had been thrown to the jackals as a distraction ploy.

So we had a chat, and then whose lanky form should emerge from the scrum but that of the Revd Jonathan Aitken? He went to prison for perjury in 1999 and wrote well about it and was ordained this year as a priest of the Church of England. He works as a prison chaplain and told me something interesting over drinks about MI5 which of course I shouldn’t pass on. Actually, I can’t remember what it was.