I hope that’s partly why the F1 guys come, because they enjoy it, being able to interact with the crowd. It is a social event, the garden party that the British Grand Prix once was before commercialism ran rampant. “Certainly, being able to go into the paddock and have a chat with the likes of Stirling Moss or Emerson Fittipaldi, is all part of it.”The punters actually felt welcome, which is probably the greatest secret of its spectacular success. “It’s awful,” Lord March said, “having to sign autographs through the fence. One of the things about motor racing is that you feel perhaps most fondly towards the time you went between, say 12 and 20. And by offering a programme from 1897 to 1997 one is giving everybody their own bit of nostalgia.”He is cautious saying so, but the festival has consciously been designed for spectators.

“Cats used to have a natural mechanism that told them when they’d had enough, but because some foods are now so palatable, they just keep eating and eating and eating. I think most cat owners will be familiar with the cat that keeps miaowing for more food so they give in to get a bit of peace. But cat owners need to be strong and if their cat is overweight, they should take it to a vet. Vets actually run weight clinics now and there are slimming foods for cats So it’s all perfectly possible.”Problem solved. Okay, Tibbles, time to go for the burn…How high will smokers go? One aspect of the Budget that’s gone pretty much unnoticed is the stonking rise of 19p on a packet of cigarettes from December. I brought up this topic with my favourite smoker, Mariella Frostrup, who’s just started presenting The Car Show on Channel 5. “I think the more expensive they make them, the more likely it is that one day I might find the strength to give up,” said Mariella, who’s tried acupuncture, hypnotherapy, patches and simply gritting her teeth, all to no avail.

But the big question is just how expensive they would have to be before she stopped “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she said. “I remember I once said it would be pounds l.50.”Natural born thrillers onlyThere were weightier matters than Gordon Brown’s Budget for the readers of The Sun to mull over last week. On Wednesday the paper invited readers to vote on the big question – should Page 3 be a silicone-free zone? And on Friday “Britain’s bust-selling newspaper” announced the verdict: 82 per cent of respondents had voted to ban models with breast implants (but only from Page 3 – they’ll be allowed on other pages). Yes, “natural born thrillers” won out over the surgically enhanced charms of the likes of Melinda Messenger, the paper’s “Page 3 Girl for the Thrillennium”. I rang Stuart Higgins, the editor of The Sun, to ask him why they had the vote in the first place, but a very polite woman explained to me that neither he nor his deputy were available for comment.

However, I did speak to Yvonne Paul, whose model agency looks after a considerable number of Page 3 girls, including Melinda Messenger. Speaking through somewhat pursed lips, Yvonne told me she had no idea why the vote had taken place I wondered if it would affect her business “Not really,” she said. “We’ll just have to give them girls that haven’t had silicone implants.” But how will the people at The Sun know if they’ve had them or not? “Well, with new girls coming along, I don’t know how they’re going to know Maybe the girls will just have to be honest Or maybe the photographer will be able to tell. I mean, you can tell.” How exactly? “Because they’re more perfect than perfect.” But Yvonne wasn’t surprised by the result of the vote. “I think anybody would rather have something natural,” she said.All I was offered was dinnerI Was interested to read Rupert Everett’s admission in Us magazine that he’d worked as a rent boy during his years as a struggling actor (struggling financially, that is, rather than struggling to act – I believe the latter is still an ongoing problem). Rupert said he “sort of fell into” male prostitution when he was propositioned outside a London tube station.