So there I was yesterday having a deft lamb chop in the Beefsteak Club, a men-only refuge from political correctness where the noble ideas of Beef and Liberty are still champion’d.

The form here is one long dining table where all Club members sit and talk.

And what conversation.

At my end of the table the discussion swept magnificently to and fro between prospects for the Lib Dems, the history of Mt Athos, the strength of the rival clans in Syria, memories of lectures by F R Leavis, the relative merits of Oxford as against Cambridge ("Cambridge is a serious university"), anecdotes of long-lost British elections, Poland’s economic successes, and the reasons for the odd shape of the Tanzania/Kenya border passing Mt Kilimanjaro.

Plus something one does not normally encounter at lunch without getting indigestion: hendiadys.

You don’t know what hendiadys is?

Tsk.

Nor did I.

It turns out to be a subtle figure of speech joining two words to form a complex, striking idea.

Thus: "the cold wind went down the hall" becomes "the cold and the wind went down the hall."

Hard-core ambitious figure of speech fans can try hendiatris, where three ideas are joined.

Nevertheless, not all sparkling conversation is accurate.

The claim was heard yesterday to general satisfaction that the ‘kink’ in the border next to Mt Kilimanjaro arises from the fact that Queen Victoria gave the mountain as a birthday present to her grandson, the German Emperor: “Wilhelm likes everything that is high and big.”

This story prompted me to dig a little on returning home. And I found this, which seems to give a plausible and detailed account of a very different (but no less interesting) colonial-era story.

Civilisation needs civilised people, who cherish tradition combined with wit and wisdom and even some learning. London has them.