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Australian tours of England really did use to begin with a one-day fixture at Arundel against the Duke of Norfolk's XI. And 1953 was an Ashes summer, so this exchange could well have happened just as Lord Bonkers reports it.
Saturday
To Westminster Abbey for the Coronation of Charles III and to swear my allegiance (provided he keeps his hands off the Ancient Liberties of Rutland, of course). I also swore at his mother’s Coronation, but only because the Duke of Norfolk trod on my heel after I offered some pithy observations on the XI he had selected to play the Australians in their tour opener at Arundel that year.
The Duke was a left-footer. I don’t mean he was a Roman Catholic (though he was, as are many of my friends - including the Pope, incidentally): I mean that he trod on me with his left foot.
A woman called Mad-Aunt appears as a warrior princess – I don’t recall any such character in 1953, though the first Lady Bonkers did hurry from rehearsing Brünnhilde at Covent Garden to join me at George V’s Coronation. I am relieved this time that no one has given Liz Truss a sword: she would surely have taken out the Archbishop of York, two page boys and the gospel choir.
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.
Andrew Bridgen has been labelled the “first cuckoo of spring” after claiming the BBC has repeatedly spread Covid-19 misinformation. The North West Leicestershire MP was also met with heckles of "shame" in the House of Commons before he was rebuked by its leader Penny Mordaunt.
Mr Bridgen, who now sits as MP for actor Laurence Fox’s Reclaim Party, spoke out after the BBC launched its new BBC Verify service this week, with the Leicestershire MP insisting the corporation had been behind much misinformation surrounding the pandemic.
Mordaunt is right about Bridgen: he is cuckoo. But she is behind the times when it comes to the way we regard the bird.
Fifty years ago the distinctive call of the cuckoo was a commonplace sound of the English countryside in spring and summer. When I was a boy you reckoned on hearing one every time you went for a walk.
Then people did write to the newspapers to claim they had heard the first cuckoo of spring: now they are likely to write if they hear the bird at all.
And our impression that the bird has become much rarer is correct. A page on the British Trust for Ornithology site says:
Since the early 1980s Cuckoo numbers have dropped by 65 per cent. The reason for this decline is not known, but it has been suggested that declines in its hosts or climate-induced shifts in the timing of breeding of its hosts could have reduced the number of nests that are available for cuckoos to parasitise, resulting in cuckoo declines.
The main hosts in the UK are the dunnock, meadow pipit, pied wagtail and reed warbler.
A passing dunnock replies: To be honest, I'm quite relaxed about this decline.
It was said of the late Duke of Edinburgh that he didn't favour High Church or Low Church so much as Short Church.
Though Charles III's wish to make the Coronation include more of the Britain of today is to be praised, the service didn't half go on. I would have been happy with I Was Glad, Zadok the Priest and then sloping off to the pub.
And, pace C.P, Snow, not all ancient British traditions date from the second half of the 19th century. The anointing screen you see being deployed here is an innovation by Charles. In 1953 his mother made do with a canopy to give her some privacy from the television cameras.
But why should the most sacred moment of the event be shielded from the public gaze at all? Does this decision arise from a fear that it all looks a bit silly?
Leaving aside Penny Mordaunt's turn as a warrior princess, let's consider the strange assemblage of treasures that were brought out, which varied from the priceless to the odd.
Yes, this sort of pageantry can come over as a calling down of the blessing of the Almighty upon the British class system, but the left's instinct for mockery - which I certainly share - does not always help the reformist cause.
The best way to cause people long-lasting pain is to humiliate them by making the things that seemed most important to them look futile, obsolete, and powerless.
Consider what happens when a child's precious possessions - the little things around which he weaves fantasies that make him a little different from all other children - are described as "trash," and thrown away.
Or consider what happens when these possessions are made to look ridiculous alongside the possessions of another, richer, child.
So if we want to change this strange country of ours, whose current borders date back to 1922, we need first to understand it.
Zadok the Priest is this weeks' Sunday music video - it's one of the pieces of music I used to play my mother in her last days and yesterday's outing seems to have own Handel many new admirers.
And on another musical note, one of Camilla's pages was a great nephew of hers who is also Steve Winwood's grandson. I hope this marks a decision to honour the Spencer Davis Group in all state occasions from now on.
What with one thing and another, there will not be another issue of Liberator until the Liberal Democrat conference in September. When it is published you'll be able to download it free of charge from the magazine's website.
But Lord Bonkers was not prepared to wait until September. "This isn't the spirit that won Sutton and Cheam," he remarked. So here we go with another week of the old brute's diary.
Monday
I, for one, am disappointed that tomorrow’s debate between the contenders for the leadership of the Conservative Party has been cancelled.
I shall have to break the news to the Well-Behaved Orphans when I set down my pen, as they were so looking forward to it. I watched the first debate on my own, but soon grasped that it was intended for a younger audience and had a word with Matron about allowing her charges to watch the second.
How they booed whenever Liz Truss appeared on screen! (I joined in by calling out "Turncoat!" for all I was worth - I like to improve their vocabulary.) How they yawned when Tom Tugendhat was shown! How they cheered when Penny and Kemi banged Rishi’s head on the floor!
Indeed, if it weren’t for the intrusive thought that one of the five is bound to become our next prime minister, I should have had my best evening in years.
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.
