Talking of institutions, today my wife and I are celebrating twenty-five years of marriage – our silver wedding anniversary, no less. Like all age-related matters these days, I find this simple fact hard to believe. I remember hitch-hiking down from Glasgow to be at my parents’ silver wedding anniversary bash and it seems like last week. I was extraordinarily lucky and got a single lift from Charing Cross, Glasgow, to Charing Cross, London, in an MG sports car driven by a man who had as many jokes as I did. We laughed all the way down the M1. If I close my eyes and think hard I can still remember the partying and the relatives and friends, many of them now, alas, long since gone. My parents reached gold before ill health took a grip and beating their record could I suppose, be considered our new target, though we don’t really think in those terms. I am certainly not going to pontificate. Suffice it to say that I am an extraordinarily lucky man.