Graeme Archer

First shortbread of the (not yet) season and the first of my life. Apart from the burnt looking one at the near left, they look OK. I think you can’t really put enough butter in shortbread. Too many shop ones are “snappy biscuits” which isn’t what I grew up eating at all. Mum’s shortbread was essentially sugary butter, *just* held together with enough flour!

It’s worth taking out a Spectator sub, should you not have one, simply to read this column. Lethally good.

I think there's a case to be made that Talking Pictures TV (@TalkingPicsTV) is the last barricade between myself and insanity. If the day's too dark and wet, then a cup of tea, the fire on, a grand old film in TPTV, and life is fine again. It's not very nice outside just now, and for some idiot reason I've agreed to go to Circuits at 6pm tonight. But for now there's an iced bun, the x'th tea of the morning (never mind lying to the GP about alcohol units, I'm now reduced also to lying to the dental hygienist about tea units: I sometimes think the process of aging is to be made to feel guilt about life's pleasures, the circle of restriction growing tighter by the year), and The Son of Monte Cristo on TPTV. With George Sanders! And relax!

One of the most visceral emotions I felt in my early life was shock at a scene played out in the debating chamber of the Glasgow University Union. A young couple in opposing political tribes had embarked on a relationship; this was well known; they were both liked. Something had gone wrong, and in a lull during one of the Union's parliamentary-style debates they had a falling out. (Their "party" benches abutted one another and both sat on their party's "front bench". As a "backbencher" I had a view from slightly above, down onto the back of both of their heads.) [GUU debating - at least in the 80s - didn't hide that it was a practice exercise for those who wanted to become MPs. In the 80s this wasn't automatically viewed as a character defect. I took part in one debate - the one I'm remembering - as a Tory backbencher.] However the contretemps had originated, it blew into increasingly vicious bites (from her) and belated attempts at smoothing down so as (I assume) to avoid public notice (from him.) And then she - magnificent (though not in "my" party) - leapt to her feet, pulled her arm away from him, and shouted: "I'm SICK OF YOU," before walking rapidly out of the chamber. I was very young (maybe 16 or 17). If the scene sounds soap operatic, let me reassure you that it was closer to actual opera in its effect on me. I felt physically sick on their joint behalf, at the very transparent evidence - and thus a realisation - that what begins as mutual affection can spiral into what *feels* like revulsion (I'm sure it wasn't that bad in fact. Though that might just be ill-placed optimism.) The debate went on, though I don't remember either the topic or the outcome. I think I learned more about human nature in the second it took the woman to grab back her arm and shout "SICK OF YOU" than the decades'-worth of novels I'd read by then had managed to impart. I started to share this because, honestly, that "SICK OF YOU" has lived on inside my head, re-occurring as the strongest denunciation I feel towards those who engender a dislike within my "sensation/feeling" - that is: when an instinctive dislike I feel requires words, I reach for that memory - and I was going to end with how I feel it often about Andy Burnham. That's true, as it happens, but in taking a minute or two to write this I've come to feel that the event, and my memory of it, deserves better than (just) to be used in that way. I hope both parties - both of whom were very pleasant people - went on to have good lives. And I will thank them for inadvertently causing one of those early-adult "step changes" in how I thought about the world, and the people in it. Love can be brutal, and universal harmony is impossible. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try, does it? The hand has to be extended for the rejection to be possible.

I've signed the Free Speech Union's petition against the Government's conversion therapy ban. Add your name: stoptheconversiontherapyban.…

This would make a great Christmas present for the MR James fan in your life. (Hint to anyone who loves me, who may be reading this via a lurking account.) I loved Barendina's last collection of stories - everything you want as these Autumn nights get damper, mistier, gloomier.

I don't know if this matters, and I may just have missed it, but I still scan the front page of the @Telegraph first thing, and I didn't see a single mention of the New Zealand general election. Instead I read of the knife-edge result on @X. Perhaps New Zealand is too anglosphere for Axel Springer?

It's like The Kraken Wakes, when England floods and Mike and Phyllis are holed up at the top of the EBC Tower, broadcasting to a grateful nation ("It's still raining, and civilisation is definitely over"), not the early part when the creatures drag themselves from the sea and pull people apart with sticky goo. (I hope that's not a spoiler for anyone.)

In which Dennis once again demonstrates why he should be an MP. Contrast with Labour MPs who've been on X this week to express their inability to comprehend legislation which they themselves are passing. I know I go on about the abomination that is the Conversion Bill a lot. I don't have children, obviously, but even reading about the Bill makes my blood boil. If I could have an early Christmas wish it would be for all of you who are blessed with children to read about this Bill and understand what Labour are trying to do. The Bill is nothing, *nothing*, to do with being "nice" to normal gay people, and *everything* about criminalising conversations that any caring parent would have with his or her child. If it is passed it is going to make it almost impossible for our culture to move on from this gender nonsense, a nonsense that has already damaged the lives of far too many children and young people.

Worth reposting. He was venerating Russell Brand.

Our generation's Orwell, apparently.

How very, very apt. Anyone who pays to read Eaton was already a fool; here is the picture such fools can nail to their bedroom walls. While they're listening to their End of Politics podcasts, no doubt. The conservative "prior" is stronger than the liberal one. I needed nothing more than my upbringing to regard Brand as a foul degenerate, irregardless his recent sex crime convictions. His psychological torture of Andrew Sachs was the proof, were any needed, of his depravity. But let's not feel too superior. Yes, we always disliked Brand, and watched, aghast, as he was venerated, repeatedly, by men such as our current Prime Minister. But the fact remains: all those who venerated him still have legislative power over the rest of us.

Lovely afternoon here. Some late swimmers on the Hoe (I’m not among them!)

I just received the most excellent, helpful, technically proficient support from @HalifaxBank 's building insurance department. The young man in Leeds who helped me with the policy was called Mark. He said that Halifax don't issue follow-up "How did we do?" emails - which is another plus point from me to be honest - but he was *so* helpful that I would like to say "thank you" in public!

Quite brilliant! All of them!

I would like to share a memory and I hope @AllisonPearson doesn't mind. Cats may look at kings (and queens, at times) and all that. When I was sacked from The Telegraph, I was on holiday, in Spain. I got a mention in Private Eye, which described me as a "shire Tory" - since I lived in Hackney at the time, this felt odd. But also nice to see my name. I'd never missed a column - the four years I had a piece on Saturday mornings I'd never missed one. It's not stressful like proper working is stressful, but it's extremely *suddenly* stressful for two-to-three hours at a time, like the time Sally phoned me when I was in Philly for my actual, non-writing, work, and it was 3am in the morning there, and I had to write a completely new column because "Charles is doing that." (My column usually appeared underneath or round the page from the inestimable Charles Moore, so I understood why he got first dibs at a topic, but on that occasion, forgive me Lord Moore, I cursed you!) And the constancy is stressful. Even proper work allowed me to book annual leave, and I honestly found having to churn out 850 words a week - plus the 3+ blogs we were expected to produced for Telegraph Blogs - regardless of what else was happening in my life more stressful than running a department of 150 people in five countries (check me! but it's true.) Anyway, much as I honestly didn't really enjoy pretending to be a columnist, there are a few things that have stuck with me, even 10+ years later. They are obviously the people. Sally, Chris, Robert, Damian and Will - the "editors" in Comment - all of them more skilled with words than I could ever hope to be, and all of them kind (except on those 3am calls!) The other thing I remember is how horrible it was to be sacked! In my mainstream "statistical" life, I more or less enjoyed a monotonic improvement in status over the years. Writing is *very* different - sharp discontinuities out of the blue. With hindsight, both aspects are some of the best things ever to happen to me: that I was given the chance to write a newspaper column - that goes without saying - but being dismissed, too, was probably good for my soul. Finally, and back to Allison. She among the excellent columnists was the kindest, most fun, and most supportive. Above I asked her forgiveness for writing - eventually! forigive all the late-night memories along the way - about her, and this is why: you're a star woman, Allison. I will never forget how you went out your way at the Sophie's Poirot party to make me feel good about myself, just after my dismissal. In my un-heterosexual way, I fell in love with you then, and your bravery in your writing since has only increased my ardour. Maybe you're Reform, maybe I'm a Tory: who cares. You're a writer, one who *matters*. Unlike with me, the Telegraph will live to regret the loss of you.