I had a very enjoyable and relaxed weekend. I am very grateful indeed to more than four hundred people who have so far emailed the parliamentary joint human rights committee to ask that the committee accept my direct witness evidence on the UK and US governments’ use of intelligence from torture.

There are still 30 hours before the committee decides whether to hear me. If everyone can email round the appeal and encourage others to write, it would be very helpful.

Meanwhile, my weekend was cheered by small things. Nadira is now entering the eighth month of pregnancy. She still occasionally makes delightful little slips of English in her lovely light accent. Yesterday we had “Hot crutch buns” for breakfast, which made me giggle a lot in a Homer Simpson kind of way.

On Friday night I met some lovely people at a dinner party at my friend Elsie’s. They included the Turner Prize winning artist Grayson Perry. I was surprised to find he was not dressed as Marie Antoinette but was in fact completely down to earth in manner and appearance. It led me to recall that there is an old fashioned craft in his ceramic making which has little apparent relationship to his perfomance art (I presume that’s what his appearances in wedding cake outfits is).

We discussed art education, which has become a great inerest of mine as Dundee University includes the Duncan of Jordanstone Art College. Perry’s view was that you can neither teach creativity, nor can you expect it to reveal itself in great bursts. What you can teach is skill. I was very impressed by him.