This was the second time in seven months that Hill has come close to the death chamber: last July he was spared by just 90 minutes and the experience was repeated on Tuesday night with just 30 minutes to go.
The following Monday, 3 November, the principals re-assembled in Manchester's council chamber for the formal signing.
St George's Market in the city centre showcases the quality artisan produce – such as Hannan's beef dry-aged in the world's largest Himalayan salt chamber – that's been inspiring chefs such as Ox's Stephen Toman, who has been exciting British and Irish critics with dishes such as Skeaghanore duck, parsley root, chestnut, coffee and chicory, built on local provenance.
We were in the Wigmore Hall, halfway through an epic weekend of music, film, poetry and artwork from Terezín organised by the great London-based chamber music group the Nash Ensemble; an event previewed in this newspaper that has since spawned many adventures and encounters.
Individually, MPs all say that the heckling is a bad thing, but put them in the chamber together and they don't seem to be able to help themselves.
The short work for mezzo soprano and chamber orchestra will be performed in the Olympic stadium-sized equestrian centre beside the derelict Necarne castle, a space she described as "amazing – and with a perfect acoustic".
"There's very much goodwill across the aisle and the chamber on getting this done this year," she said.
But if that primitive resonance is not achieved, storytellers are failing to fulfil what is perhaps their primary function, which is therapeutic – to act as an echo chamber to our deepest fears and desires, and thus help to integrate them into a healthy personality.
But right until the end of his parliamentary career he remained, like Benn, a speaker who could half-fill a near-empty chamber.
The emphasis is still on early music and the choral and chamber repertoire, mostly performed in Gregynog Hall itself.
That means that he was in the final stretch and he was being prepared for the death chamber.
