Well, I finished Dan Brown’s Deception Point this morning. Frightful drivel! Still, he did finally discover the word ‘indignation’ late in the text, having malapropped ‘indignity’ passim until the last knockings. But that didn’t stop him using ‘pissed’ for the same emotion pretty liberally through the text. But I devoured it nevertheless, latterly out of curiosity as to what miracle would rescue the hero and heroine from certain death this time – under attack from special forces while sinking in a leaking mini-submarine in shark-infested waters above an about-to-erupt magma dome: get the picture? Needless to say, they survive for the yarn to end with a shag in the Lincoln bedroom of the White House. You hadn’t read it yet? Oh, sorry.

Talking of matters reproductive, another three New Guineas are in pots, and the seed pans in the front window are showing promising signs of germination – the antirrhinums are starting, as are Mr Unwin’s annual Rustic rudbeckias and the yellow achilleas. Still waiting for signs of life from the perennial Goldsturm rudbeckias and the lobelias. And did I remember to label the antirrhinums ‘tall’ and ‘dwarf’? Did I hell as like.