My goal for the night was not to fall over on the ice at Somerset House. This is much more easily achieved if you’re not trying to skate on it. But that’s precisely what I was doing.

In the event I actually did much better than simply not fall over – I managed two whole laps without touching the edge. This surprised even me as, for the first 20 minutes or so I’d been waving my limbs in all directions, like Bambi on two pairs of roller skates, while Rich zipped around like a flea on speed.

I think it was a confidence thing, really, as once I realised the secret was just to lean forward a little, keep your knees slightly bent and go for it, it wasn’t actually so difficult. It would have been a lot easier if everyone had been going at the same speed of course – all either fast or slow – but instead they seemed to come slicing in to the edge, where I spent a lot of my early minutes, at a whole spectrum of unpredictable speeds.

But despite this, in a whole hour of cruising around the rink, first slowly but eventually at a fairly respectable speed, I came off with a sense of satisfaction and pride and not a single bruise.

We celebrated with the season’s last two cups of mulled wine.

^{* Credit for the title of this post must go to Private Eye.}