A day marked by my inability to cope with a melting ice cream! My friend and colleague, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Leader of the House, came to town to promote getting the economy up and running again and he chose Weymouth as one of his venues. We met outside Weyfish, a fish bar and soon-to-be restaurant on the quay, run by the dynamic Sean Cooper. He'd kindly arranged for Jacob to park his car there, after which we walked a short distance to St Mary Street to visit the ice cream bar Boho Gelato. Behind the counter we found the charming Toni Guyton, who kindly served us an ice cream each. She then placed the two cones in a holding bracket, where they remained for some five minutes while we spoke with her. With new customers trying to come in, we grabbed our cones and walked into the street to be surrounded by the local press and media and a freelance photographer. At this point, my predicament in particular became clear. Jacob's choice of ice cream was clearly firmer than my vanilla, which was streaming down the cone and all over my hand. Time to get licking. Well, of course the cameras began to click and I had an uneasy feeling we'd be seeing more of those pictures at a later date! Ice creams consumed, we walked back to Weyfish and had an informative brief and tour of the brand new premises by Sean. His team could not have been nicer and at one point Jacob was given a giant lobster to hold and we all wondered what tomorrow's headlines would read. Sean has invested a lot of money into this venture and taken on new staff and both Jacob and I were keen to support this exciting project. We then headed over to the Pavilion to meet Phil Say, who was accompanied by his partner Louise and their son Alex. Phil has only recently had to make 25 staff redundant, but he's battling on and hopes to re-employ them in the future in better times. He took us on a guided tour, explaining to Jacob what the Pavilion does and how important it is to the local community, and it is. He kindly gave us lunch - scampi and chips - before we were left alone in the bar upstairs to catch up with a handful of senior Association members, including my chairman. It was a positive visit and much was gained from it. Meanwhile, the row over the handling of A Level and GCSE results rumbled on, with the Education Secretary being urged to launch a review into the handling of the situation. Gavin Williamson has apologised to students. In the Health Department, Matt Hancock confirmed Public Health England would be replaced by a new body focused on preparing for external threats like pandemics. Baroness Dido Harding, who runs the NHS Test and Trace in England, will be the interim chief of the new National Institute for Health Protection (NIHP). Mr Hancock's decision follows intense scrutiny of PHE's handling of the pandemic. Finally, diners used the Eat Out to Help Out scheme more than 35 million times in its first two weeks, the latest Treasury figures showed. More than 85,000 restaurants have now registered for Eat Out to Help Out. According to data from booking site Open Table, it has helped restaurants to be 27 per cent fuller on average than they were during the Monday-to-Wednesday period in August 2019. It's all go!