10.05am:  So watch out for fake news stories. Mind you, when you start looking for fake news stories, so much of the stuff in the papers looks as if it’s been made up … I remember one year I was looking for the spoof story and I decided it had to be the one about the Japanese entrant in an ultra-marathon who had got lost in the UK because all he had to navigate by was a map provided by a petroleum company showing where all its petrol stations were.

It, of course, was absolutely true and the fake story was far less colourful.

For All Fools’ Day, our neighbours and landlords at Muncaster Castle are laying on a special day of events - Tom Fool’s Day. They’re the only castle in the world - as far as they know - still to have a resident Fool.

One of the special events is “Pelt a Pennington” - Peter Frost-Pennington - who will, we hope, get his reward in heaven - sits in the stocks and for a small fee allows himself to be pelted with flour bombs, eggs and wet sponges. We get a share in the takings, in return for which we’re going down to maintain control of proceedings.

It tends to bring out people’s primaeval instincts, somehow …