“Iron Man triathlons are now de rigueur.”

THERE was a time when it was difficult to predict the course of post-pudding conversation at a dinner party, regardless of whether the guests had drunk the bones of a distillery or not.

Even sober conversation could be relied upon to entertain; you could always bank on a bit of banter and at least one regrettable drunken disclosure of a dubious nature before you got your coats to go home. Ordinary, dinner-table chat was a bravura performance, looking back. It was, as Oscar Wilde said, conversation that touched on everything — sex, politics, money and gossip — but concentrated on nothing.

With the odd exception, when someone got drunk enough to forget about brevity and humility — the two cornerstones of good conversation — and droned on for half an hour about their golf handicap/children/stellar career, no single topic dominated proceedings. All topics rubbed along just fine together and knew when their time was up, mindful that other topics might need to hold the floor for a while.