Just been to see the film Pierrepoint about one of the last hangmen in Britain (filmed, apparently, partially in the jail at Lincoln Castle), a strong argument, in my view, against capital punishment. When I emerged from the hall, a rather hoity-toity woman asked me if I had enjoyed the showing. I replied that I hadn’t enjoyed it exactly, but thought it interesting as a film, and no, I don’t agree with hanging.

“What d’you do with them,” she asked, “if you don’t hang ’em? Shoot them like the Russians?”

Some people just don’t get it, do they?