Opinion is divided on the new cover of WINE magazine. Clare Mack, the cosmopolitan food and wine blogger, loves the new matt look while a former employee dismissed it with a single word: “haemorrhoids” over dessert at Hemelhuijs.

Which reminds me of Elizabeth Taylor. For as Antonia Quirke points out in the New Statesman “Taylor’s arse was a catastrophe. Burton used to call her ‘Bumsy’ because of her haemorrhoids.” Indeed the actor John Standing, remembering Liz on Radio 4, is described as giving “the impression that he had been leaning against the fireplace fulminating since dawn: ‘I’ll never forget this ravishing girl, this bona fide star. All through dinner, she complained about getting gas.’ ”