Begin reading ‘Quartermaine’s Terms’. It seems a touch passé at first – jokes about people forgetting names, light banter, no one listening to anyone else, but the writing is always easy to read and listen to. It’s intelligent and funny. And the end is very moving, done with an unsentimental and deceptively light touch.

Yes, I can see myself making a good St John Quartermaine. Much more tempting than the Sibleyras plays. I suppose because ‘QT’ is so essentially English. I enjoy all the nuances that make it more than just wit.

Picked up at 5.20 by Mike G and Steve [Abbott] and by six we’re outside the Grosvenor. Meet the grave-faced Frenchman who owns Orion, through Hachette and Lagardère (weapons, I think). He says he has a copy of ‘Himalaya’ ‘always in front of me in my office’. Why there’s no French edition is discussed, but not resolved.

‘Himalaya’, up for Book of the Year, picks up an early win, for the less than illustrious TV and Film Book of the Year, sponsored by Channel 4. Much joy around the clump of Orion tables and I’m up on the podium for the second time in a week, to collect my Nibbie from Carol Vorderman and Richard Whiteley. Book of the Year goes to ‘The Da Vinci Code’, which has sold zillions and, though no one seems to have a good word for it, has been read on a massive scale.

A manly hug with Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, whose motorbike diary was also in the film, TV category. They are both good, down-to-earth enthusiasts. Ewan seems to have resisted all the blandishments of stardom and approaches everything with a positive delight in the hand life’s dealt him – or so it seems.

Ion T, who is at our table, joins me in the car home. The Diaries and their publication sort of hang in the air. Ion being discreet but, I hope, enthusiastic.