Dinner date

Today is the closing date for nominations for the inaugural Voices of Freedom Awards.

The awards – to be presented at The Freedom Dinner at Boisdale of Canary Wharf on Tuesday – are designed to recognise the work of those who have consistently opposed excessive regulations on lifestyle issues.

The highlight of next week's event however promises to be our guest speaker, the irrepressible Rod Liddle, associate editor of The Spectator and a former editor of the Today programme.

A non-apologetic smoker, Rod currently writes weekly columns for The Spectator, The Sun and Sunday Times so we're delighted he accepted our invitation.

To give you an idea of how big a draw he is, a recent event – An Evening with Rod Liddle – had to move to a larger venue not once but twice to meet the demand for tickets.

No surprise then that this year's Freedom Dinner has attracted a record number of guests and is now fully booked.

The work doesn't stop with putting bums on seats, though. Today we've been working on the table plan and cross referencing that with a list of dietary requirements.

Here's one:

"No pork, no lamb, no beef, no prawns, no egg, no cheese."

Er, they have heard of Boisdale, haven't they?!

Another requests "No orange." Now that's a first.

MPs, journalists, parliamentary researchers, an iconic Seventies' TV star ... The Freedom Dinner 2016 is shaping up to be the best yet.

I'll keep you posted.