I have had three recent conversations, all lively if unrelated – and all well lubricated. The first concerned Anglo-Saxon England around ad 700. Recent discoveries of coin hoards suggested that economic activity during that period of the Dark Ages was more extensive than had been supposed. Without damaging the coins, it had been possible to establish that some of their silver content had come from Byzantium.

Every time
I drink a German wine I am convinced that one should do so more often

The main discussants were a couple of academics who had been disciples and friends of Philip Grierson, one of the greatest numismatists of all time: a scholar, collector and major benefactor of the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge. That reminded me of an embarrassing meeting. In my undergraduate days, I was once introduced to Professor Grierson, whose reputation was well known, as a fellow numismatist. ‘Oh really: what is your period?’ I quickly put matters right. I was no numismatist, merely a schoolboy coin collector. He was amused: I, overawed and embarrassed – but he quickly put me at my ease.

Historians of the Anglo-Saxon period are constantly searching for new sources in answer to that perennial question: ‘How dark were the Dark Ages?’ I have always assumed that the defeat in 1066 was a blessing, in that the Norman Conquest brought England into European civilisation, and prevented it from becoming part of south Scandinavia, and that the cruelties inflicted on Anglo-Saxon peasants were a price well worth paying. But there are those, notably Sally Harvey, who point to the glorious quality of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts and insist that the late Anglo-Saxons could have achieved everything that William and his brigands accomplished if only King Harold had not been so impetuous as to lead an exhausted army into a combat with fresh troops.

We did not resolve that dispute, even with the help of a quantity of Ayler Kupp Spätlese 2020. One of our number had been introduced to German wine by another great Cambridge historian, Geoffrey Elton, who insisted that the wines of the Rhine and the Mosel helped to redeem German civilisation. After the war, Konrad Adenauer said that it was time for Germany to be governed by wine drinkers rather than beer and schnapps drinkers, The Ayler Kupp was delicious. Every time I taste a German wine, I am convinced that one should do so more often. This was no exception.

The agenda of the second symposium was one of gloom mitigated only by fou rire. The subject was Scotland, now as badly governed as it has been since the later Acts of Macbeth. The new Hate Bill: you could not make it up. We lacked a lawyer to clarify an important point. Is hate speech only criminal when it is uttered in Scotland? What about Scotsmen at a dinner table in London? None of the Scots present was notorious for political correctness. So could we complain about one another and help pile up the caseload in Police Scotland’s already groaning in-tray? Anyway, if you are searching for the ripest examples of hate speech, just listen to what most sensible Scots are now saying about the current Holyrood government.

The evening culminated in a 30- year-old Laphroiag. Stands Scotland where it did? Yes, at least on Islay. That whisky combines peat, power, length but also, ultimately, subtlety. Freedom and whisky gang thegither. Could the same be true of whisky and common sense?

Finally, another unresolved dispute, between two 2011s from friendly rivals Léoville Barton and Langoa Barton. Which was the better? By the end, there was one possible verdict: a delightful draw. Gentle Mosel, outstanding whisky, fine claret: there are ways of keeping the world’s chaos at bay.