Last night we had a Macmillan 'family' dinner to celebrate the launch of Wilbur Smith's 31st ( I think, it's hard to keep up) novel, The Quest. Do have a look at Wilbur's website and in particular his autobiography. He may be most celebrated for his best-selling novels (he is right now number one in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand and our fingers are crossed for the UK this weekend) but he is much more. Here he is with his wife and the dedicatee of The Quest, Niso.

At the other end of the book publishing spectrum, one of the main news items this morning has been about the changes in family life in Britain. In particular that one on four children is being brought up in a single-parent family. This research has been published by Palgrave Macmillan in the 37th (Wilbur will have to put his skates on to catch up) edition of Social Trends created by the UK's Office of National Statistics. There is hardly any good news in the data - more obesity, more time being ill, less ability to fund house-buying etc. Ah well, we'll all have to escape to fiction for some good news.

Yesterday afternoon I was taken, along with a delegation of the World Presidents' Organisation to the US Ambassador's residency in Regents Park. It's known as Winfield House and is an amazing piece of real estate in central London shown by this aerial view.

The ambassador, Bob Tuttle, was forthright, interesting, urbane, and diplomatic (as you'd expect). But the bit I liked was the talk by his wife, Maria, about the history of Winfield House. It was acquired by the Woolworth heiress, Barbara Hutton. After World War II she offered it to the State Deoartment for a dollar who hesitated (there must be a catch) but eventually accepted the gift. The only condition Hutton made was that it retained the name 'Winfield' which is the 'W' of F.W.Woolworth, her grandfather, Frank Winfield Woolworth. So now you know!