We had an old friend, Peter Kennealy, to lunch today. When I started at the European University Institute (Florence) in 1981 Peter, although one year younger than me, was already a fixture in the evenings at the Bar Fiasco (the student bar), because he had gone straight to his doctoral studies from his first degree at UCL, Dublin (whereas I had made a detour via a Master’s degree at the Johns Hopkins University). He was full of glitteringly witty repartee, and so he still is. Peter combines librarianship with editorial duties and, as I know through personal experience, wields a forensically authoritative red pencil. I like to think that Peter would have more than held his own at the famous Friday lunches of Martin Amis, Christopher Hitchens, Clive James, et al. The riff at our table was about the disappointments of swanky, pseudo scientific restaurants, capped with Peter’s suggestion for the name of a definitively economical establishment; Leftovers.