It was precisely twenty years ago that I first got myself published – a book review that was printed in this magazine shortly after my father, the late lamented Auberon Waugh, became its editor in March 1986. Little did I realise then, as I sheepishly slipped him the script, over which I had sweated blood for two weeks in my Manchester student digs, that it would mark the start of a more or less continuous stream of book, record, concert, opera and television reviews that would somehow or other provide the main source of my income for the next two decades.

‘Nepotism!’ I hear the congregation cluck – ‘How unsavoury!’ Well, you may judge it as you wish. Personally I happen to believe that most kinds of nepotism are a force for the good, and in certain cases even a moral obligation. I am supported in this by Saul Bellow’s son,