The Kalahari desert is home to some strange creatures but the meerkats are sweet. I find myself looking forward to each Sunday evening’s instalment of the lives of one particular family. The anthropomorphism of the commentary is over the top but the creatures themselves are fascinating. They have a hard life but I suppose it’s the life they know. Even so, I’m glad that I myself live in London, with all its particular challenges, rather than in the Kalahari desert.

I have had a good day, a lovely day. I did exactly the same work as I have on any other day but I changed the way I look at myself as a doctor. I stopped thinking of myself as inadequate and began to see myself as being reasonably competent for the work I do. Of course I can still make mistakes and there is a lot I don’t know – but I am now in a better frame of mind and less despondent. I am therefore probably less likely to make mistakes and more likely to remember things that I learn.

Incidentally, some fairly disappointing things either happened or didn’t happen today but they made no difference to the way I felt.

I have tended in the past to put myself down and buy into every criticism while ignoring compliments or affirmations. No longer.

“Everyone knows you’re a crap doctor.”

– except his wife, who was grateful that I refused to support his demands for exclusive custody of their child.

Two senior planning officers came to visit us today. On my side was our senior architect and the head of our planning advisors. We did not parade our planning QC at this stage. I kept quiet.

I had supper as a guest at another club tonight. The ambience was lovely, well worth the many years’ wait to become a member. The food was awful, well worth resigning over. I am very fortunate in getting the best of both worlds at the Garrick, my own club.

Having got off drugs, he now wants to go home to his family. He has two young children. This sounds fine except that there are two significant problems. The first is that he has not spent sufficient time in treatment to learn how to stay off drugs. The second is that both of his children are in care and he won’t see much of them. He himself is only seventeen.

Ann Widdecombe is right: the ruling that all adoption societies must offer children to same-sex couples will be the death of all conscience clauses in British politics. The issue is not whether gays can be good parents – I believe they can be excellent parents – but the people who believe homosexuality to be a sin should not be forced to accept it or go out of business. I can see the same happening to me in my belief in the private medical sector. I shall never again work for the NHS. I do not believe in it. I see it as the political spearhead for totalitarianism. The proof of that will be when I am told that I have to work for the State (or for some massive ‘private’ corporation that the State can control) or close down. I reckon that I have a good fifteen years or work left in me but I doubt that a continuation of this socialist government will let me get that far in this country. The writing is on the wall.

Whether or not one agrees with David Cameron, as I do, that some Muslim organisations are as divisive as the British National Party, it is good to see him making specific statements on issues that matter. However (understandably because we are still a long way from the next general election) there is still one thing missing.

How wonderful to see Top Gear back on our screens again. Seeing the Hamster himself, alive and well and in sparkling form, was great but it was the return of the programme itself that cheered my heart almost more than that. It cannot be beaten for sheer political incorrectness and I love that.

Meg is in Wales this weekend, with her sister Hilary and friends Alex and Carol, being coached by members of the Alberni quartet on a Brahms piano quartet. In six months time, together with Meg’s brother Peter, they will present the Cesar Franck piano quintet. I can’t compete with any of that. I know my place.