Iam in my London club on a rare English hot spree – temperatures have reached 30 degrees – quaffing an ale in the Members Bar overlooking Green Park. It’s my home away from home, the Royal Over-Seas League, located less than 50 metres from St James Palace and just a 15-minute stroll from Buckingham Palace or Trafalgar Square.

The Ritz is a neighbour. So are some of the most famous “gentlemen’s clubs” in the British capital, although most are open to female members these days – ever since The Carlton Club, the original headquarters of the British Conservative Party, was forced to allow its first woman member in 1979, a certain Margaret Thatcher, who was the Tory prime minister at the time.