There is no less inviting date in the calendar than the GQ Men of the Year Awards. But if you give out prizes, people will come, and with Dave on a shortlist of one for Politician of the Year we were compelled to make our way to the Royal Opera House to pretend to feel honoured.

The evening was as moderate as you would expect, with the biggest cheer of the night being given to someone called Jason Statham, who won the Editor's Award for - according to the judges' citation - having dated someone called Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, some of whose relatives, one imagines, were almost certainly at school at the same time as Dave and me.

The whole nonsense was presided over by David Frost, famous primarily for remembering people's names, who unintentionally provided the only laugh of a long night when he failed to recall the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award. This led to a delicious pause as various people who considered themselves to be nominees (Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, James Corden) openly fidgeted over whether to go forward and seize the day. In the event, the winner turned out to be the king of chat, Michael Parkinson. An odd decision not made any more palatable by the platform it provided for Frosty and Parky to interview each other at the same time and demonstrate that both are even duller interviewees than they are interviewers.

Attempting to leave, we were buttonholed by Colonel Fawn, who thrust himself in front of Dave and stuttered, "N-n-n-nice shirt." Astonishing. Since we had last met, DC had won an election and gained a daughter, yet the editor of GQ and author of Cameron on Cameron: Conversations with Dylan Jones was more interested in his shirt. Dave paused before replying, "Great trousers," and we went on our way.

Being charitable for a moment, I suppose it was half-decent of the Colonel to prostrate himself in front of us, given the strained terms on which we had parted. We had embedded Fawn on the campaign bus, but pliability can only get you so far and we were on the outskirts of Carlisle when, on being asked for the third consecutive time "What do you think of my cardigan?", Dave finally cracked and ordered security to evict the fashion journalist from the bus. An eviction that left the Colonel with a long walk on which to ponder how he might now fulfil his commission to write Cameron on Jones: Further Conversations with Dylan Jones.