A cold start to the day. Winter creeping in. A lot on and to cope with. Lady Susan Hussey, who served the Queen as a Lady-in-Waiting for 60 years, was sacked for making inappropriate comments to a black British charity boss, who was repeatedly asked where she was "really" from at a royal reception. She told the BBC the encounter was "abuse". I do not know Lady Hussey, but I am sure she did not mean any harm but, at 83, might have come across the wrong way. It was a generational thing, I suspect, and I'm sorry for both parties. A flu surge saw the number of people in hospital in England with the virus rise 40 per cent in the past week, according to official figures. The average house price fell by 1.4 per cent month on month in November, marking the biggest drop since June 2020, according to an index. And Ian Blackford is to stand down as leader of the SNP group at Westminster, it was confirmed. From what I read, it was a coup to replace him in a Party riven with distrust.