Some eggs and a glass of wine

Caviar feasts stay in the memory. I remember one occasion when I scoffed a satisfactory quantity of the stuff with that old monster Bob Maxwell. As he wanted a favour, he was the acme of charm and encouraged me to dig in to a tin of beluga ‘given to me by President Gorbachev himself’. At that, I thought I saw the butler twitch. I gathered from others that the Gorbachev tin was in constant use for favoured guests, so there were only three conclusions. First, that Mr Gorbachev was using a sizeable proportion of Russia’s GDP to fund Bob’s entertaining. Second, that Bob had discovered the philosopher’s stone, or at least a moulin mystique, for caviar. Third, that he had a daily order from Fortnum & Mason, paid for out of the pension funds. But most Mirror pensioners were lefties, so who cares?

It is possible to enjoy the stuff in less ambiguous company. I always enjoyed travelling with my old friend and master, Julian Amery. El Amery’s wit, insights and anecdotes took one back to the pre-war era: pre-first world war, that is. He also believed in comfort. In Eastern Europe, that had two essential ingredients. The first was gipsy music. Even though these were proper Zingari, not social security addicts on stolen wheels, I was never convinced. I found it a bit over-lush. There was no dispute about the second requirement: caviar. Like Lord Byron — there were other similarities — Julian had a greater reputation in the wider Europe than at home. It was widely assumed that he had been Foreign Secretary, or Prime Minister, or both. This did nothing to inhibit the flow of caviar.