Gordon Ramsay has let slip that he ‘stole’ his wife Tana from a friend when they met back in the early Nineties. In the big scheme of things this doesn’t shock me at all, and wouldn’t strike most of my generation as particularly strange behaviour.

But the young see things very differently when it comes to romance. They regard getting together with someone who has been in a relationship with any of their friends as absolutely verboten.

Yes, when I was young, it would have been a bit rotten to go off with a friend’s current flame, but it didn’t carry the stigma it does now. Today the hands-off edict lasts for months, even years. No wonder they all have to find love on dating apps rather than in real life.

If the same rule had applied to my cohort, we’d never have had any boyfriends at all.

I can’t think of any of my boyfriends who hadn’t had a previous liaison with someone I knew.

Rather than meeting strangers on apps, we were dependent on our social group or the office to find love. We often met our next boyfriend when they were with a friend and hoped they might break up soon. The notion that there would be a lengthy quarantine around your friend’s ex was unheard of.

I accept dating apps are an excellent way to expand your romantic pool (although I’m not sure I could ever use one). And I know many people who have found love via them. But I can’t help thinking that twentysomethings would find it so much easier if the apps didn’t exist and they ignored the ridiculously stringent rules about whom they’re allowed to fall in love with in the first place.

I am all in favour of women being given an equal shot, but I don’t believe Sir Keir Starmer should be told by women MPs in the Labour Party – as he was at a gathering last Wednesday – that he must appoint a female First Secretary of State.

Sir Keir doesn’t have anyone in this role, but he does have plenty of women in senior positions – Chancellor, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Deputy Leader. Surely, if he is going to appoint someone, it’s the best candidate who should be given the job.

When I was discussing who might succeed me at Vogue with Jonathan Newhouse, head of the magazine’s publisher Condé Nast, I questioned his desire to appoint a man. His answer: ‘I’m interested in what’s between their ears, not between their legs.’

It was a bit crass, but Sir Keir should think similarly.

When I was in London’s South Kensington the other day, I saw a man have his phone grabbed by a guy on a bike.

In the same week, Sir Mick Jagger’s girlfriend, Melanie Hamrick, was attacked at Annabel’s, the lavish Mayfair nightclub. Both are examples of the massive rise in criminality in posh areas of our capital city.

Tom Cruise recently said he was leaving London because he didn’t feel safe near his flat in Hyde Park. When I first read this, I dismissed it as pretty wimpish – but as someone who spends most of their time in the well-heeled parts of the capital, I have to admit I feel far more vulnerable than I used to.

A friend had her ring stolen while wheeling a stroller in Chelsea and my doctor was mugged for his watch in Marylebone.

I am far more vigilant than I used to be. I hide my phone when I’m walking in upmarket shopping areas where gangs of thieves operate. Although I don’t own expensive jewellery, I’m wary of carrying an expensive handbag. London’s becoming less the city of Paddington and Mary Poppins and more the badlands of Baltimore in The Wire.

Every time I walk into a new restaurant, one of the staff asks if we understand their ‘concept’.

When I eat out I like things to be straight-forward. I study the menu, then decide on a first course before choosing a second course, and then I like those dishes to arrive at the table in that order.

Increasingly, the ‘concept’ of many modern venues is for everything to come more or less at once. ‘We encourage sharing,’ they say, adding: ‘The food is delivered when the kitchen has it ready.’

I’ve now had several meals served in this manner where a burrata salad arrives a second before a warm pasta and the same time as a rare steak.

I’ve realise that the ‘concept’ is for you to eat the whole meal in the same time it would take to eat one course, thereby vacating the table for a second sitting.

Surely the delight of going to a restaurant, particularly at today’s astronomical prices, is to be served the food of your choice in the order in which you choose, and then eat the meal in a leisurely manner? Not to have it flung at you all at once, higgeldy-piggeldy on the table so you have to wolf it all down before it gets cold.

Rushing into Peter Jones to buy an emergency single bedspread last week, I couldn’t find one anywhere. I was told that no, they didn’t stock them.

‘Would I like a furry throw instead?’ they suggested. No, just something inexpensive and cotton.

When I searched John Lewis online, it was only marginally better. Surely this is yet another example of the discrimination single people often complain of.

My son sent me a screen grab of my tiny mention in the Epstein Files. I realise this is by no means an exclusive achievement. Nor was it particularly interesting. I was listed as a speaker at ‘The How To Academy’, a London-based institution that hosts events with different speakers.

If that’s the kind of boring detailed information that is being ploughed through by lawmakers, the saga of who features is going to drag on longer than Game Of Thrones.