Peter Rhodes on twilight wine, living forever and the problem with too many cooks

This exchange took me back to an extremely jolly press trip (sorry, “research assignment”) some years ago which ended with a tutored tasting of single-malt whiskies in Edinburgh.

“You know,” said one of our generous Highland hosts, “if we could just figure out how to drink not too much whisky and not too little, we'd live for ever.” I dare say he is still researching the subject.

It was Radio 4's legendary Letter from America chronicler, Alistair Cooke, who gave whisky its most lyrical name. He called it “the twilight wine of Scotland.” To be sure, there are few twilights that cannot be improved by a tumbler or two of the stuff.

On one long-lighted May evening of dear memory, two pals and I ate a hearty supper on the sun-blessed shore of Inchmurrin island, Loch Lomond, then carried our chairs to the beach and did serious damage to a bottle of Laphroaig. It felt as though we were living like kings. Good to have His Majesty's formal approval.

Meanwhile, my conversion to full-fibre digital broadband, a project shared between BT, EE, Openreach, Quinn and CyberPower Inc, has hit another tiny snag. I cannot imagine why, although I keep thinking cooks and broth.

Anyroad, having spent my third day waiting in for the great switchover, I contacted BT to ask why, after receiving BT confirmation of the appointment by email, no-one had turned up. A loyal BT chap, he hinted at a cock-up by the co-contractors and declared that the email “has not been sent by a person but by the system.” Maxims for our age: If in doubt, blame a microchip.

As the debate on the so-call BritCard gathers pace, consider this. The proposed ID card will contain details of every citizen, to be displayed on their smartphones. So far, I have seen no reaction from Whitehall to this fascinating statistic from Age UK: “Around one in six (18 per cent) of people aged 65 and over in the UK in 2021-22, the equivalent of around 2.3 million, have not used the internet for personal use or has no access to the internet.” Sort the bones out of that, Sir Humphrey.