Nicholas Courtney is 80 today. Co-creator, with the recently late, lamented, Barry Letts (the greatest of the Dr Who producers), of Brigadier Sir Alasdair Lethbridge-Stewart, one of the great embodiments of the post-war, one nation, consensus spirit. Straight as an arrow… and yet able to tolerate, support, and sometimes take leadership from that left-wing pacifistic crank who tried to immunize my generation against the ideology that, ultimately, killed the consensus the Brigadier stood for.

I presume someone will be celebrating with five rounds, rapid.