It is as much within the remit of the Civic Society as any planning application to guard prominent positions in the town against encroachment by unsuitable occupants. Shropshire Council have made it known that they need to generate extra income from the properties they own and they have ear-marked the ground floor of the Assembly Rooms building as a potential candidate. It’s in the interest of everyone in Ludlow that a site like this should be occupied by a business or organisation which will generally enhance the function, ambience and visual appeal of the town.

It has been mooted in our local organ that the ASK restaurant chain might be approached, or are even in discussions over the proposal. The appearance of a mediocre, characterless restaurant like ASK or, even more alarming to contemplate, Macdonalds in a key spot in Ludlow’s unique and handsome Castle Square would be abhorrent to most inhabitants and an affront to the dignity of this quite exceptional town. It would be culpably insensitive of those whose task it is to decide if they were to  inflict something so intrusively inappropriate on future generations of Ludlovians and visitors to the town.

In principle, provided that the well-run Tourist Information Centre were re-housed in as practical a site (which could well be the Buttercross), there’s no reason why its current premises and that of the museum should not produce an income for the strapped council, provided always that they continue to fund the museum elsewhere (albeit, perhaps, in a more stimulating form than the current exhibition). But the Council must do so only by letting the premises to a business that’s truly compatible with and sympathetic to its very particular position in the town.

At the same time, it’s worth pointing out that there are large premises, with restaurant planning use in a prominent spot on Corve Street, which have so far failed to  secure a tenant from among local restaurateurs, nor even from any of the aggressive national chains, despite an excellent size, suitability and prime position.

The current choice of eating places on offer in Castle Square is a discouraging and shameful result of weak and short-sighted initiatives by the County planning authorities, in keeping with their timid decision to allow an application for an absolutely unsuitable development  on Church Walk. The George, which in its wonderful south facing site, could be a fine bar and restaurant, is a distressing example of what happens to pubs in the hands of the monolithic and unsympathetic Pub Cos, while the Castle Lodge Buttery is surely not a sight to be proud of.

It matters very much what goes on in the Assembly Rooms site and, notwithstanding the need for income, it would be a far wiser, longer term commercial decision for the town if the premises were offered not simply to the highest bidder, but at a viable rent to a restaurant of quality and distinction, which would add both to the culinary reputation of the town and the visual qualities of Castle Square.

It is very much within the power of the County Council and to some extent the Board of the Assembly Rooms to decide who the tenant should be and it is vital to Ludlow’s reputation that they get it right. In this, the people of the town deserve open debate and transparent decision making.

The sole driver of this application is the grubby, small-minded greed of opportunistic developers and the current freeholders of the unlikely site – formerly the gardens of the Reader’s House, one of Ludlow’s most distinguished dwellings – seeking to maximize their profits on a lucky purchase of the garden at a knock down price. They manifestly have no interest in the town’s quite exceptional architectural and historical qualities; they are insensible to the overwhelming feelings of disgust of the inhabitants of the town, and have no regard for the massive disruption to the life of the town that their development would cause. 

The site has deliberately been allowed to become derelict, and a sliver of land adjoining it, backing on to two shop premises on King Street, has been included in the application. The developers, an individual called Andrew Sheldon and Shrewsbury architect, Graham Moss, hold an option to buy the site for £150,000 (the bulk of the ground – the abandoned garden – is currently owned, and was bought for just £3,000, by Alexandra Countryside  Developments (Robert Hughes and Charles Grant, who also own 9/10 King Street). The background to this extraordinary deal is obfuscated, and I would be grateful for more information regarding it; on this blog or privately via peterhenryburden@gmail.com)

The brief look at the history of this attempt to implant a large ugly wart in the very centre of Ludlow shows that the first application for a slightly higher density of dwellings was turned down by the then planning authority, South Shropshire District Council, only to be appealed to the DoE, whose inspector under deliberate misguidance, and to the astonishment and consternation of a huge majority of voters in the town, saw fit to allow it.

This plan turned out to be unbuildable, and the developers, emboldened by their first permission, have submitted a second, fresh plan. Some councillors – whether because they are friends or have connections with the developers, or are pusillanimous, or just plain dim is uncertain – were persuaded that as there was an extant, albeit entirely separate permission in situ, there was a financial risk to the Council in refusing this new one. With the help of the Chairman’s casting vote, these councillors passed this entirely irrational and unnecessary proposal to wreck the centre of an important historic town.

To put it into context, there is no pressing need for this additional housing in a town that has been extensively provided with new housing over the last decade – some still unsold –and where, anyway, several prominent, eminently suitable brown field sites exist as and when the need occurs.

Nor is it an exaggeration to describe this site as inaccessible. It would be hard to find a place less suited to any kind of development, let alone the building of five complete houses. A manner of transporting all the material and equipment required has yet to be identified. On the face of it, everything will have to be manhandled across St Laurence’s church yard, approached by narrow streets, in one case completely impassable by heavy goods vehicles.

The allowing of this gross, impractical plan shows local democracy in a very poor light, and points up the abysmal lack of taste, judgement and historical perspective among a majority councillors on Shropshire Council’s Strategic Planning Committee. It was committees like this that compounded the Luftwaffe’s efforts in the wholesale destruction of the once beautiful, now largely hideous cities of Gloucester and Worcester. Look at these cities and, closer at hand, the butchery that took place in the medieval heart of Shrewsbury in the 1960s; look at the two more recent major developments allowed by the local planning committee in Ludlow – Tesco and the Library, an ugly, out of scale and dysfunctional building – and ask yourself if you should lightly let them get away with it again.

I invite any assistance and provable information in building the case against this development in the hope that a chance to quash it becomes available. In the meantime everything possible that can be done, without breaking the law, to dissuade Messrs Sheldon and Moss from carrying through their plan is to be encouraged, and a careful eye must be kept for any signs of pre-emptive actions by them to breach the wall that marks the curtilage of St Laurence’s Church. The developers cannot commence without gaining access at several points along the wall, and the ownership of the wall is uncertain, however, that is in the process of being established and it most probably belongs to the Church, and the Diocese of Hereford have expressed their clear opposition to the scheme. There is a good chance that they can stop this development; I hope they do all they can to achieve this.

Disgracefully, there is no voting, no obligation on the part of planning hearings to take any notice of the views and wishes of the people who live in a town – who own their landscape. So I find myself now working in a library which is a cavernous, noisy space, which seems to function as a meet and chat venue, where large quantities of higher space are unused, and commercial activity occupies a proportion of the charmless lump of a bulding. The planners also bequeathed the town an ugly, useless little open space in front of the hulk, “perceived” by the County Council, “to attract people, thus benefitting nearby traders.” It is nearly always empty, occupied by discarded chewing gum and lager bottles.
    There are countless towns and cities throughout Britain that have been ruined in this way, and there have been many occasions when the public have yearned for someone of sufficient influence to raise a voice in support of their objections.
      The almost compete vandalization of the once lovely city of Gloucester, of which only the sublime cathedral and its immediate close remain, wouldn’t have happened if there had been a Prince Charles to suggest to the culprits that they should consider not just the wishes of their rate payers, but also the longer lasting qualities of traditional, vernacular and less aggressively modernistic building design.

I’ve always been attracted to the musical subtleties and sheer physicality of flamenco music and dance and I have regularly promised myself a short sojourn in Seville, to be spent in small, smoky bars where guttural singing and harsh guitar chords echo off low vaulted ceilings – a promise which I have so far failed to keep. With a strongly held view that raw peasant culture like this doesn’t export easily, I had doubts that this powerful musical form would convince when performed on the stage of a provincial English theatre.

I was delighted to find that I was wrong, for despite lacking the tang of gitana sweat, tapas and fino, Jaleo put on a show of brilliantly excuted dancing and singing that was real, energetic and exciting.  The troupe consists of six performers: two guitarists, a classic male flamenco singer (Juan Reina), two lovely women dancers (one who also sang with vivid gypsy intensity) and a splendid male dancer (Adolfo Vega). One of the guitarists, billed as El Ingles, gave a solo performance of an astonishing virtuosity that I’d never seen before.

They staged the show in way that cleverly conveyed the impression they were in a small, intimate bar – even, as they finished their two sets, performing without any artificial amplification. Although the auditorium was only two thirds full, they were ecstatically received and applauded.  If Jaleo are coming your way in their current tour, and you like that sort of vigorous, sweaty and highly skilled music-making, I urge you to make the effort to see them while you can.

Walcot is now owned by Robin Parish, whose family bought it fifty years ago.  Six years ago Robin took the risk of inviting a touring company, Opera à la Carte to stage a production of a classic Opera in the ballroom. The audience were encouraged to dress up and bring elegant picnics, in the manner made popular by the Glyndebourne operati, to lay out in the handsome grounds between the hall and the lake. As productions of opera of any kind are thin on the ground in Shropshire, the initiative was enthusiastically endorsed by local lovers of the genre, and the event has become an annual must-do. There is also an option to dine inside the house, and this year I was kindly invited by Ivor and Caroline Windsor to join them in the front row and for dinner.

The production on offer was Cosi Fan Tutte, a work baffling in the disparity between its piffling plot and sublime music.  What was it, I wonder, that prompted Mozart to devote such creative genius to a story that wouldn’t make it past first base in the Mills and Boon editorial office?

Set by Opera à la Carte in the days of the Raj during the early 1920’s, Mozart’s mischievous lampoon of gender stereotyping tells of two sisters,  Fiordiligi and Dorabella whose partners test their fidelity. Encouraged by incorrigible bachelor, Don Alfonso (sung by a slightly unconvincing Thomas Barnard), the sisters’ suitors Ferrando and Guglielmo lay his wager that the girls would fall in love with any man who turned up. The men tell their girlfriends that they’ve been called to military service, but come back disguised as young, heavily moustachioed Indian nabobs to test this theory on each other’s partner.

Fortunately, the frustrations of this fatuous plot become irrelevant.  In fact, one is almost glad not to know quite what the performers are saying, for the quality of the singing did ample justice to Mozart’s wonderful score.  That producer/director Nicholas Heath was able to sign up six such superb singers is testament to the extraordinary standard of operatic talent in this country. Peter Wilman (tenor) as Ferrando, and Canadian soprano, Lynn Boudreau as Despina I especially enjoyed.

The work was simply and imaginatively staged and performed in a way that held the attention and evoked the appreciation of a full but intimate house. Certainly I enjoyed the evening, dinner, and drinks afterwards with the chance to meet the cast and producer, as much as any at the Royal Opera House.

Immodesty Blaize’s (by the way, wonderful) show offered a nostalgic hint of the old, disaster-prone Hay, which was sort of endearing for old Hay aficionados. She was intro’d by Julian Clarey, who didn’t stay long, thank God. I’d seen him before – in the front row at the Ludlow Assembly Rooms, within arm’s length of the purple sequinned cod-piece he was wearing – and found the rambling portrayal of his gay sex life at least as boring as that of any heterosexual. And he doesn’t talk about much else.

Immodesty’s burlesque, on the other hand, verged on, even strayed into the realms of true art. It was striptease, with less strip and more tease, although I am not especially familiar with the cruder, old Soho version of this kind of show. With a support team of two pairs of remarkable legs, and a feathered head dress that would have stopped Sitting Bull in his moccasins, Immodesty curved, cavorted, strode around the stage emanating sexual control and ended by straddling a large, rampant rocking horse in as lavish and, frankly, arousing display of Art-Strip as you could have wished for.

It was a pity that Clary hadn’t done a little research, so he could have prepared us with the stimulating knowledge that, for instance, the stages of the majority of burlesque shows in Hamburg, Berlin, Paris and Budapest, which for the first half of the last century were the strongholds of the genre, were peopled with British women. And how Immodesty is leading a world revival of the art.

Instead, as Immodesty strode off at the end of her performance with a gentle quiver in her fleshier parts, Clary reappeared accompanied by a small, grumpy woman with a head of tight-curled tresses who was called Stephanie Theobald. Clary started to chat to her about her new novel, but her mouth was so full of chewing-gum that her answers, and later her readings were fairly incomprehensible, especially competing with the amplified bass of Alex Valentine’s band in the next tent (in a piece of old-time Hay juxtaposition.) As a result I can’t tell you much about the new book, A Partial Indulgence, although I see the Guardian described it as a ‘weird, gothic’ novel of the art trade.

More interesting was the reappearance of Immodesty, now more conventionally, elegantly dressed, to talk about her new novel, Tease. This is too much, you might have thought – burlesque performers really shouldn’t write novels, but of course, as is so often the case with people who appear at Hay, there are other layers to Immodesty. Starting life as Kelly Fletcher, from Hitchin, Herts, schooled at a convent and university, she was working as a producer/director of TV commercials while she developed her interest and skills as a Burlesque artiste. She spoke with intelligence, wit and perceptiveness, when you could hear her over Alex Valentine’s bass-player. I shall buy Tease; I might even read it and review it for you.

There’ll be more from Hay…..

The way the Westminster trough has grown, and the reasons for it are symptoms of a classic British fudge.

Those with any understanding of the market value of effective analytical and executive brains know that it is considerably higher than an MP’s official salary. Thus, over the years in order to attract people of the right calibre to fill our legislative chamber this salary has been systematically ‘enhanced’ with add-ons in the form of various tax-free allowances. Because the British public is so used to being handled by Parliament and the media like a prickly teenager who must not be upset at all costs, an open, honest debate on the topic hasn’t taken place. And yet, compare the salaries of the 645 MPs with the top 645 individuals in banking, in the law, in the media/ entertainment world, even the top 645 sportsmen and women. In terms of remuneration, the MPs are patently the also-rans.

This, obviously, has been recognised by the Members and their administrators and ways of achieving some kind of realistic approach to salaries have been sought, but it has had to be done in an underhand way, so as not to upset an ill-informed and suspicious electorate.

As the Daily Telegraph revelations unfold, it is clear that the civil servants controlling the purse strings regularly reject some of the more fanciful claims that are lodged, but those who have put in chitties for swimming pool cleaning have had them passed, presumably because they fall within the proscribed criteria – and it isn’t reasonable to blame them for the system. They’re not abusing the system; the system itself is an abuse. In any case, a cynic might concur that a swimming pool is essential for someone who has been wallowing in the sewer of Westminster all week.

Throughout the pubs of the land I can see the great British Public’s reaction to this concept, as they jump up and down, yelling that our MPs don’t deserve any more money and they are all greedy tossers – well, if they are (and I’ll readily concede some) it’s because they are not paid enough, and not enough of the right people will make the sacrifice. In a hangover from a time when only people rich enough not to have to work stood for Parliament, we cling on to the quaint C18th British idea that the job of government should be purely vocational. In the C21st it can’t and shouldn’t be, but our affection for the old ways makes it hard for us to accept the realities.

If MPs were paid the money they could earn at the top of their professional or business tree, individuals of the highest calibre wouldn’t have to sacrifice large incomes to join parliament and we could demand that they gave the job their full attention, with clear rules about extra-curricular activity and strict monitoring of attendance.

But, of course these revelations making highly entertaining breakfast reading, though I’m delighted that our own Ludlow MP, the punctilious and hard-working Philip Dunne, at the last count, did not claim a penny for his London residence (and he lives 165 miles from Westminster).

Even more amusing would be to see the lists of expenses claimed by members of the journalistic profession, especially those at the muckier end of it. Mazher Mahmood, for instance, intrepid “investigations editor” at the News of the World regularly puts in chitties for the purchase of cocaine. We know this because he was forced to admit it in open court.

Not even our most flamboyant and spendthrift MPs have tried that on.

Naturally I attended incognito, adopting the name ‘Harry Harvey’ for the event.

At 6.oo am on Saturday morning ‘Harry’ strolls across to Platform 2 on a deserted Ludlow station. It is a clear morning filled with spring bird song, rudely interrupted by a disembodied female voice from under the telly screen that shows which trains have been cancelled. “Please be aware…” it says, with irritating (and now ubiquitous) superfluity “…that the whole of this station is designated a no-smoking area.”

Presumably some omniscient CCTV device has spotted me and, consulting its database, found that I was once a deeply committed smoker, although it is evidently unaware that on April 25th 1995 (14 years ago to the day), I cut my cigarette habit from 3-4 packs a day to zero.

I’ve just propped my videocamera on top of a rubbish bin and switched it on so that I can address a few discreet words to it about my plans for the day when an unmistakeable whiff of cigarette smoke reaches me, and I glance round to see I’ve been joined on the platform by a small white-haired lady in jeans who is sucking away vigorously (and oblivious to the advice of the electronic watcher) at her first gasper of the day. And I will say that, committed non-smoker though I now am, I don’t mind. I’ve always felt it would be fair to allow uncontrollable fumeurs at least a small segregated and distant section of the platform to carry out their self-destructive habit (which raises so much revenue for governments of all persuasions) where they could be joined by people eating foul-smelling Big Macs (which should, but don’t yet produce any revenue to fund their consumers’ later hospitalisation).

By the time the 4.54am from Crewe to Milford Haven reaches Ludlow, it contains only a scattering of dozers with their heads on the tables. I find an unoccupied table, on the west side of the train so that after we’ve passed Hereford I can enjoy the sight of the Black Mountains in the morning sun.

Crossing in to Wales and reaching Abergaveny at 7.20, the train begins to fill with noisy Welsh families, all bound for Cardiff and the stardom that awaits them at the Millennium Stadium, joined by more at Pontypool, Cwmbran and Newport. Their enthusiasm and commitment makes me think that if education were run as a reality TV show… well, you can imagine, how well-informed the late St Jade might have been.

As the train pulls out of what the station announcers call Casnewydd towards Cardiff on a stretch of line I seldom take, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m not being more intrepid than the calls of my profession demand in exposing myself to possible ridicule. But I allow my qualms to be displaced by the thought that although Newport is traditionally considered one of the ugliest towns in Britain, it does have one distinctive and handsome building, the 1930s art deco Town Hall and Tower that stand on the northern slope of that unfortunate conurbation. Cardiff station, too, I notice, has a few art deco brush strokes about it, of which more could be made, in subtle contrast to the spiky, bulging beauty of the Stadiwm y Mileniwm.

I leap down from the train, now quite at ease about confronting those X-factor naysayers. The sun still shines (although the Guardian has plonked a black cloud the size of large raisin over South Wales in their weather forecast), I’m wearing a sharp retro blue-checked jacket, which I bought for £20 from the Zani Lady Flea Market in Ludlow, and a neckerchief of fine Liberty silk is flapping around my neck. I hum a few bars of My Foolish Heart, the song I’ve selected as my victim for the day, and stride off briskly towards the Shrine of Welsh Rugby.

As I approach the nearest entrance, a steward in an ill-fitting, orange reflective garment approaches me. ‘Are you singing alone, sir?’

I’m surprised. How does he know that this grey-haired man in a dodgy plaid jacket c1975 has come to sing? I look nothing like Des O’Connor. And, unlike other contestants beginning to converge on the Stadium from every direction (and it’s still only 8am), I’ve brought no support team.

I admit that, yes, I am singing alone and I’m directed to cross the River Taff, which oozes gently down the west flank of the Stadium. I stroll with a few dozen other humming proto-stars for a quarter of a mile up the west bank, recrossing the river to enter by a north gate, where a crowd of several thousand has preceded me – some tell me they have been there since the night before – which turns out to be a pointless gesture.

Only now do I take the trouble to work out that the sessions you see on TV, in which Simon Cowell mentally destroys a few deluded wannabes and Louis Walsh has water thrown at him, can’t possibly be happening that day. Cowell and his lieutenants, I’m told, are coming tomorrow (Sunday), and will be presented with no more than 100 of the 2,000+ hopefuls who’ve turned up this morning. It’s obvious really; Simon and Cheryl and the others couldn’t be expected to hang around and give 2 or 3 minutes each to 1,900 no-hopers; working 8 hours a day (and without coffee breaks – which I couldn’t see Cheryl putting up with) the process would take 8½ days.

The next three hours soon drag as we zig-zag like lost escargots along the walkway above the river towards Stadium Gate One. The punters are sporadically encouraged by an unidentifiable cheer-leader and bursts of X-Factor theme music to shout and scream and look excited, although most of them by now are looking knackered and nervous as hell. A lot are still squeezing in a little late rehearsal of their songs, perhaps so they won’t forget their key once it comes to performing, but I have a secret weapon – a backing track for my song in my preferred key which I’ve bought as an MP3 from Backing Tracks Online and downloaded to my phone. I’ll stuff in the earphones and play a quick blast of it just before going in (or so I think) to my a capella audition.

While we wait and the rest of the hopefuls wonder what this strange looking, not very youthful geezer is doing in their midst, I discuss prospects with other contestants – Emmas and Kylies mostly – and their devoted families. Wade and Alisha have come along from Casnewydd; they’re going to sing as individual artistes, but it’s soul singer Wade, a quiet, reflective man, who is the serious contender. Regrettably, I don’t hear him sing but he looks like he can. Nearby a group of Cardiff girls, taller, blonder, slimmer than Charlotte Church sing a cappella in close harmony, and all around are bursts of Beyonce muezzin calls and tremulous Enrique Iglesias warbles. It’s very discouraging. My song, I’ve discovered, was first published in 1920. I was born in 1948.These things are going to count against me, I feel, in so far as I have any serious ambition, but I am looking forward to being insulted by Cowell and winking at Cheryl Tweedy and my chances of being among 100 out of 2,000 are looking, frankly, pathetic.

But, I tell myself, I’m here to observe, not to win, and hummed a few bars of My Foolish Heart – not too loud; I don’t want to discourage the others as we shuffle minutely closer to the mighty stadium and a life of singing stardom.

[next time.... I tell you how it feels.]

Ludlow Racecourse is an attractive sporting venue set on the gravel-bearing flood plain of the River Teme. There has been recorded horseracing there since 1729, and about a hundred years ago a fine members’ stand was erected in cast iron. Facing north, it prevents a low winter sun from shining in the punters’ eyes. However it also exposes them to the full blast of any northerly wind descending off the Shropshire Hills.

A serviceable, if not architecturally outstanding Members’ Bar and Restaurant was put up about a dozen years ago, and now earns extra revenue – like any sensible Members’ Bar – as an antiques fair and general entertainment venue. Last week it hosted an auction of German Nazi memorabilia.

Specialist Document auctioneers, Mullocks had put together a sale which included a wide ranging catalogue of items from that devastating period in German history. The star lots were scheduled for the end of the sale – a series of paintings executed by a struggling Austrian artist in the early 20th Century – the youthful and evidently romantically-minded Adolf Hitler.

Understandably, commentators, including the auctioneer’s expert Richard Westwood-Brookes, were anxious to point out how bad the paintings were, and how if they hadn’t been painted by Hitler, they’d have been worth nothing. As it happens the pictures didn’t look so bad to me (I’ve certainly seen worse at the Ludlow Art Society exhibitions) but please don’t take that as any kind of condonation of the old mass-murderer’s subsequent behaviour – and, in any case, I’m a notoriously bad judge of pictures.

The racecourse is just two miles from here, so I decided I should go and see what sort of people would turn up to buy the moustachioed monster’s early daubs. In the part of the building set aside for the sale, media folk – maybe a dozen news teams with TV cameras and appendages – easily outnumbered real people, and as the Nazi highlight of the sale was reached, it became clear that most of the serious bidding was coming down the phone line – Shropshire is not the epicentre of the art-dealing or, for that matter, Nazi memorabilia world. Nevertheless, a few prospective bidders had come in person, but not, as I’d half thought, the infamous British Hitler fan, David Irving or even his defender, Christopher Hitchens.

There were a couple of German TV crews and, in a Hitler/Wagner cross-reference, a pair of blonde, pigtailed and fairly stout Brunhilde’s, dressed in black, as well as a few men sporting slightly iffy apparel and/or haircuts who, in the circumstances, could easily have been take for Hitler fanciers. The buyer of the first painting – an alleged self-portrait, depicting a little man in a brown suit of plus fours dangling his legs over the side of a rustic bridge – at £10,000 (over 5 times its estimate) was a man with short-cropped grey hair, in his 40s with a Birmingham twang who told reporters he was John Ratledge. As no individual of that name who is the right age appears on the electoral register, he might have been being coy about his identity. Who wouldn’t be, after you’d told the hordes of the press that you were going to hang the thing on your office wall.

The collection of fifteen paintings which the vendor had stored in his garage for 60 years then forgotten about, sold in the end for c£95,000 – perhaps £94,900 more than he paid for them.

Is there shame or guilt to be apportioned for profiting from Hitler in this way?

Would the ethically correct action have been to put them on the next bonfire.

The tacky event inevitably produced a few tacky headlines…

“HEIL OF A PRICE!” from Dirty Desmond’s Express.

“GOERING, GOERING, GONE!” from the usually less adventurous Shropshire Star.

I can now thankfully cross off my list of things to do before I die: “Attend an auction of a dead Nazi leader’s works of art.”

In my next blog I’ll tell you how Harry Harvey (he was called Henry last week, but thought it better to be Harry) fared at his Xfactor audition.

And with him was his fiancée, Rupert Murdoch’s favourite larrikin, editor of our biggest selling national newspaper and my Wapping pin-up, Rebekah Wade. I can tell you truthfully that Ludlow is seldom visited by journalistas of such distinction. Resisting the urge to pester Ms Wade, and, frankly, not expecting a positive reaction to her appearance in my last book and on this blog, I nevertheless felt I should do what I could to welcome the newly fledged race-track novelist to the fold of race-track novelists to which I belong, and bought a copy of Charlie’s book, Citizen, from the affable author.

Launched last week with a stellar guest list including Messrs Cameron and ChoirBoy Osborne as well as editors of the rest of Rupert’s stable, it was well-reviewed in the Sunday Times yesterday. The Guardian – you may think a little churlishly – implied that, as the TestaRossa has been rumoured to be going on to a more general command of Murdoch UK, that a review – and a favourable one – in another News Corp sheet was inevitable.

I haven’t read it yet but will pass on the benefit of my own review in the near future.