​Tony lives in a cottage right on the beach and has grown to know the Bay so well that he thinks nothing of venturing out on his own to cross it. He described to me the enormous beds of mussels which lie in the Bay, acres of them, a natural harvest which is there for the plucking. Which is about as close to Thoreau’s idea of the Slow Life as you can get, I reckon.

I love Rod Liddle. He’s one of the few journalists who manages to be entertaining and thought provoking at the same time, which is why I never miss his columns in the Spectator and the Sunday Times. There was no question whose side I was on when Derek Hatton called him a “f****g fat, useless lump” and a “pathetic bully” when he appeared on “Come Dine with Me”. I was chuffed today to see a reference in his Sunday Times column to my appearance on “How The Other Half Lives”. He said he had watched the programme and was struck by the irony of someone from West Cumbria saying that they lived in a crime free area only weeks before Derrick Bird embarked on his killing spree. An excellent joke, only slightly spoiled by the fact that we don’t actually live in West Cumbria, which is an hour and a half away. But Rod Liddle is an excellent journalist and the first rule of journalism is not to let the facts get in the way of a good story.