Lord Bonkers' Diary: "A haughty old boot"

You know, I sometimes suspect that relations between the Bonkers and the Dukes of Rutland fall some way short of cordiality.

Friday

Back in Rutland, we are still racking our brains to solve the problem of the blocked canal. Hard as we try, the transhipment docks behind Oakham Quay continue to fill and no solution emerges. 

Really, if it were not for the memoirs of a previous MP for this part of the world (I do not mean my own 20-volume work), I should despair. 

Fortunately, Alan Duncan has published Noises Off and given us all a Jolly Good Laugh. He details a row they had in The Falcon at Uppingham – a pleasant watering hole, but it’s not the Bonkers’ Arms –  with the Dowager Duchess of Rutland and describes her as “a haughty old boot”. Reader, I roared.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Earlier this week...

• His spaceport on the outskirts of Thurso
• I have no memory of their Landslide from 1906
• A party of well-meaning water voles
• One of the great sites of London