I am no believer in providence. But having booked lunch with John Bolton – perhaps the most hardline (now former) member of the Bush administration – I arrive to find Donald Rumsfeld seated at the next table, and have the fleeting thought that I might possess my own newspaper-reading guardian angel.

Since I have arrived first I now have the advantage of watching Bolton, whose shock-white handlebar moustache gives him an unmistakeable Asterix-like appearance, cross the floor towards me. I wait to see what happens when he chances upon the former Secretary of Defense.