A Major honour to be there

I went along to the annual 364 Club lunch today - my fourth - and it was fantastic.

To explain, it was, as ever, held at Headingley Cricket Ground and the purpose was to celebrate the life of former Yorkshire and England batsman Sir Len Hutton, and also just to talk cricket.

Seated on my left was Freddie Trueman's former Yorkshire opening bowling partner Mike Cowan. And on my right was Steve Green, the recently retired Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire Police. They were great company and each one of their stories was considerably better than all of mine put together. Obviously.

Most notably, the guest of honour was former Prime Minister, cricket nut and all round good guy Sir John Major.

I was privileged to have met him a couple of times when I worked in Westminster and found him charming then - as most people who have ever encountered him would confirm.

Today, he was typically self-effacing but also very, very funny.

I've just got time to relay one quick anecdote from his speech before I make tea.

As Prime Minister, he was walking through the Kremlin with former Russian President Boris Yeltzen with whom he became very good friends during their collective time in office.

"Boris, can you sum up the current state of Russia in just one word?" asked Major.

"Good," replied Yeltzen swiftly, but not entirely convincingly. And Major was certainly not convinced, having been pre-briefed by British officials that Russia was, in his words, "falling apart."

"OK, Boris," Major continued, "can you sum up the state of Russia in two words?"

Yeltzen paused and thought for a moment before uttering his classic response.

"Not good."

Magnificent.