It is not such a bad Hague idea for UK and Canada to share certain Embassies. In future Scotland and Quebec might do the same.

Hague shared hotel rooms with his special adviser to “save money”. Good to see consistency in a politician.

I continue to do all I can to help Julian Assange in his struggle against the mire of false allegations with which governments are attempting to bring down Wikileaks and get him eventually to perpetual solitary confinement in the USA. I was with Julian again in the Embassy last week, and shall be visiting him there again shortly.

Which begs this question. If, as the government falsely claims, this is purely a case of genuine criminal investigation, with no political overtones, and if Julian Assange really is nothing more than an alleged criminal who has jumped bail, then why am I, and others helping him, not under arrest for aiding and abetting or conspiracy? Plainly the government need to get their narrative straight.

For MI5 and the police, if it makes it any easier, I shall be going on Thursday afternoon, (though I have no doubt you already knew that). You can arrest me then.

Sorry for the break. I was staying in London in one those seriously grotty hotels around Kings Cross station, so that I could get into the British Library quickly and not miss a second of the – far too restricted – hours its reading rooms are open. I was immersed in Burnes related manuscripts through the day and spending the evenings fitting the raw material into the overall picture (mostly by lying in the bath and thinking very hard, but that might be too much information).

I did however emerge after midnight on Thursday to go down to Ronnie Scott’s and contribute to the pop-up reopening of the Establishment Club, which it is hoped will lead to the Club eventually reoccupying its old premises. Obviously the organisers are setting themselves an impossibly high bar in trying to follow in the footsteps of Peter Cook, though the attempt is not too sacreligeous as it has the support of his widow, Lin.

John Fleming’s review linked above gives a fair account of what I said, which focused particularly on the agenda of the mainstream media in not reporting the real news. The Evening Standard evidently has no sense of irony, as they produced (two thirds of the way down page) a totally tendentious account of my appearance, not reporting anything I said, completely misrepresenting audience reaction and claiming I was attempting to do stand-up comedy.

I suppose I should be grateful to the Standard for this unlooked-for proof of the truth of what I said. But somehow I am not.