I went to the annual Orwell Prize reception, where the guest speaker was Charles Wheeler. He described from his own experience what had happened to a British prime minister who decided not to get involved in an American president's foreign adventure.

In the mid-1960s, the US was stuck in Vietnam, and the president, Lyndon Johnson, increasingly anxious to get foreign assistance - then, as now, for diplomatic as well as military reasons. The new British prime minister, Harold Wilson, was loth to send troops. He knew it would split the Labour party and because he feared the public disorder which would almost certainly result. He did, however, need financial help from the US. Younger readers won't remember, but in those days Britain was in an almost permanent state of economic crisis.

Johnson was furious with Wilson, and refused to give aid. Nevertheless, Wilson was invited for talks in Washington, where Wheeler was then the BBC correspondent. At the main dinner, Johnson had arranged for the band to begin the proceedings with I Got Plenty of Nuttin', an act of gross diplomatic sarcasm.

Look ahead. There were violent demonstrations in Britain, in which, as a horrible long-haired, know-it-all student, I was proud to participate. They would have been far worse had British forces been in action. But Vietnam forced Johnson out of office - he realised he could not win again in 1968 and stood down. Whereas Wilson went on to win two more elections, both in 1974, and it was Richard Nixon who dragged the US, kicking and screaming, out of Vietnam. There may be a lesson for us there today, though I'm not entirely certain what it is.

· A tempting invitation arrives from the National Association of Local Councils. It's to a reception next month at the House of Commons, and like all good parties, it has a title: Making Community Delivery Happen - Maximising First Tier Potential within the Community Delivery Agenda. Yum. I can almost taste the little smoked salmon and cheese roulades now.

But is there any reason why they can't call it, say, Providing the Best Possible Services? I suppose that if they did, when local government people drink at local government bars, they would snigger.

· Employees of the English National Opera have been banned from calling each other "darling". The paragraph in a "re-education document" (nice Maoist touch there) states: "the use of affectionate names such as 'darling' will also constitute sexual harassment". However, the document goes on to say that if existing staff already call each other "darling" they can continue to do so, "but if someone started here on Monday, they would not".

What a magnificent, splendid, rococo example of a failure to get the point! Actors call each other "darling" for two reasons. First, it is democratic. Everyone, from the grandest theatrical knight down to the humblest spear-carrier is "darling" to everyone else. The British thespian world is tremendously egalitarian and woe betide anyone who puts on airs. A friend of mine has worked on several films in which British actors appear with Hollywood stars. She says that while the Americans tend to leave their trailers only to be whisked by limousine back to their luxury suites, the British get together and go to the pub, lead actor with "first shop assistant".

Second, and this is the main reason, "darling" covers up for the fact that you can't remember people's names. Who can? When you see a face and ask yourself, "was he the bent policeman in that episode of The Bill, or did we do panto in Rhyl two years ago?", then "darling" is the perfect cover-up. And everyone knows it's a cover-up, but at least you've made the effort.

· The University of Kingston is to provide a course in suburban studies, and many people have been predictably scoffy. For some reason, people who live either in the countryside or the inner city feel themselves morally superior to suburbanites. (Surbiton, because it sounds like "suburb" is the one everyone is rudest about. Yet it has streets full of lovely Georgian houses.) But the fact is that everyone, including people in west London where we live, gets out to the 'burbs as soon as they can, including rock stars and cult actors, such as, say, Richard E Grant, who seems quite happy to have left the 24-hour urban vibe of the city for leafy streets and well-tended gardens.

The suburbs are much friendlier than the city. It's rare for me to walk to the station without meeting and greeting someone I know. You wake up at the weekend within a short walk of several parks and the river. A filthy river, admittedly, but water none the less. We have shops that stay open until midnight; we have greasy spoons opposite fancy bistros. We can park, usually.

The main problem is that suburbs are now so popular that they are becoming victims of their own success. Our local Swiss baker is about to close - no doubt to be replaced by yet another estate agent, since there is far more money in selling suburban houses to unhappy city dwellers than there is in flogging crusty rolls and custard slices.

· There was much surprise in the Commons when on Wednesday Michael Howard quoted the Beach Boys song, Help Me Rhonda, adding the rest of the chorus, "help, help me, Rhonda". He was referring to the MP for Rhondda, Chris Bryant, who had just asked the prime minister a toadying question.

It was surprising, I suppose, that we should think the Tory leader very "with it" and something of a "hep cat" for quoting from a song which will be 40 next year. But the puzzling thing is that no one can make out the first line. It begins: "Well, since she put me down ... " then becomes incomprehensible. In his Book of Bad Songs, the American humorist Dave Barry claims it goes on "there's been owls puking in my bed".

I always wondered, so I checked some of the innumerable websites devoted to song lyrics, and they all agreed it was "I've been out doin' in my head". Whatever that means.

When Michael Howard accuses Mr Blair of "goin' out to do in the electorate's head" we'll know that he has caught the inner-city vibe.