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Throughout my four months in hospitals, I dreamt above all of being home. This isn’t exceptional – it’s a very common desire – though I did meet one woman who complained that she’d find it too ‘quiet’ at home after the clatter of the ward. But for me the situation was extreme. I’m an only child; I live apart from my husband of 30 years because my desire for solitude is more persistent than it has ever been for any drug. I turned down a quarter of a million pounds to go on Celebrity Big Brother because even the idea of sleeping in a roomful of strangers for a few

There are many reasons to like Kyrgyzstan. It has extraordinarily lovely women: some mad collision of Persian, Turkish, Russian, Mongol and Chinese genes makes for supermodels at every bus stop. It is safe, friendly, cheap. Its cities are commonly free of rubbish and graffiti (how does Central Asia do this, yet we cannot?). Despite these charms, it has few tourists. However, I can’t say anything positive about the cheese – because the cheese is dreck. Last night I went to the Globus supermarket here in downtown Bishkek and bought a sample of the local fromage. When I got it home, it was like chewing a rubber toy: tasteless, over-firm, banal.

It was conceived as a ‘people’s palace’ – and, as it turns 150 this week, Alexandra Palace continues to fulfil this brief admirably. There is something for everyone, and it’s not too sniffy about who ‘everyone’ describes. Hence the annual mayhem around the winter darts tournament, when everywhere between Muswell Hill and Wood Green is crawling with groups of very drunk men dressed as Smurfs, monks or the cast of Scooby Doo. The Royal Opera House this isn’t. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t more lofty, less populist offerings. I recall when Alexandra Palace’s theatre reopened in 2018 after an £18 million restoration, it debuted with an ENO production of

The Royal Mail has issued a set of commemorative stamps to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day on 8 May. The ‘Valour and Victory Presentation Pack’ features ten men and women whose courage and determination, in the words of Royal Mail, ‘helped shape the outcome of the second world war’. Another criteria in selecting the ten was ‘diversity’. One or two curmudgeons on social media have muttered about ‘wokeness’, but that is unjust. For many decades, the valiant contribution of Indians, Nepalese and West Indians to the war effort was overlooked or, worse, airbrushed out of British history books. So well done to the Royal Mail for including in its

Field of Gold is going to be hard to beat in tomorrow’s Betfred 2000 Guineas at Newmarket (3.35 p.m.). He was impressive when winning the Group 3 bet365 Craven Stakes over course and distance last month and, according to his joint trainer John Gosden, the horse was only ‘80 to 85 per cent’ fit for that race. However, his rating of 118 means he is not officially the best horse in the race – that honour goes to Shadow of Light. Field of Gold is the most likely winner of the race but odds of 7-4 make no appeal. After careful consideration, Godolphin’s stable jockey William Buick has decided not