A bit of self-indulgence to lighten the Boxing Day thru’ New Years dog days – The Gay Divorce…(‘Divorcée’, if you prefer) – gave me my line of the season: Ginger to Fred after he’s blocked her in with his little MG, “Would you mind moving your car…or don’t you want it anymore?”

Cracking little movie, dating from the golden era when America’s best writers were all heading west to join the great Hollywood gold rush, and the script really reflects it. Turns out it was Fred’s second with Ginger, and one he agreed to reluctantly, both because he was set on becoming a solo dancer rather than one of a duo, and because he thought Rogers wasn’t classy enough for the role. Hard to believe when you see them dance together: a short-lived artform at its peak; we’ll never see its like again.

Out of nowhere, I was suddenly pinned in my chair by a rendition of ‘Wunderbar!’, a song I knew only from its appearance in Kenny Everett’s World’s Worst Records from the late ’70s. A song which, in its original, still has the power to reduce strong men to quivering wrecks….

Here’s to a wunderbar 2022, everyone!