Actors including Dame Judi Dench, the Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall, and the Love Actually rocker Bill Nighy added a touch of glamour to last night's ceremony, held at the Savoy in central London.
Winds will ease after midnight, allowing a touch of ground frost in places by morning.
What had happened was that the two gentlemen who administered the English department had heard I was acquiring a small reputation as a serious writer of fiction, and therefore I was no longer required to teach composition only, but might be allowed, even without a doctoral degree, to teach unsuspecting sophomores a little poetry, with even a touch of Shakespeare in the night.
Arsenal last night added a touch of pomp and circumstance to a previously plebeian presence in the Champions League.
Photograph: Andrew Winning/Reuters Updated at 1.41pm BST 1.29pm BST A bit blingy: a close-up of Chinese actress Tao Zhao's shoes during the photocall for Tian Zhu Ding (A Touch of Sin) at the Cannes Film Festival this morning.
And it appears that Ping has also received a touch of the early-day Twitter, musician Ben Folds last night saying that an account had been created in his name.
But for me, it's strictly a summer drink, a pastel-shaded warm-weather substitute for full-bodied red wine that, as the end of the school holidays arrives with a touch of autumn chill in the evening air, begins to lose its charm and purpose.
Plantagenet's Samson's Range Sauvignon Semillon 2012 (£9.99 Waitrose; 13.5% abv), from Western Australia, would bring a touch of sunshine to a bleak winter evening.
The singer Shannon McNally, whose raspy voice has more than a touch of Stevie Nicks, opens the show tonight at 10; tickets are $12 (Pareles).
The visitors' first real effort of the evening had a touch of quality about it, Harry Kane running on to a superbly weighted pass from Lucas Moura and predictably managing to send in a shot on target, only to see Rui Patrício keep it out with a one-handed save.
