It's been a busy week.
Last Friday I attended a reception at the House of Commons to celebrate the (long overdue!) wedding of a former colleague, now an MP.
We were asked not to post anything on social media so I didn't, but it was nice to catch up with several people I hadn't seen for decades.
Regrettably there were one or two I didn't say hello to because it's been so long I didn't recognise them and it was only later that I found out they were there.
Anyway, I was back in London this week for two more receptions, the first at the Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly.
The event, which included a private viewing of the RA's Summer Exhibition, was hosted by the tobacco company JTI and was called 'Connections'.
I didn't know a huge number of people but I enjoyed wandering round the galleries, stopping to chat with those I did know.
I also got to wear a virtual reality headset that had something to do with illicit trade but after removing my glasses to accommodate the headset it was all a bit of a blur, if I'm honest.
After some trial and error, I did however succeed in opening, with my virtual 'hand', a car boot that contained what appeared to be packs of counterfeit cigarettes. Success!
Hats off, btw, to the guest who, twelve hours after attending the RA event, was scheduled to appear before the Health and Social Care Committee in the House of Commons.
By all accounts he handled the interrogation very well so credit where credit's due!
And so to last night and a packed event – on the terrace of the House of Lords – to mark the 300th birthday of the Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith.
Hosted by Lord Borwick, it was organised, naturally, by the Adam Smith Institute and was quite a nostalgia trip for someone like me.
Madsen Pirie and Eamonn Butler, who founded the ASI in 1977 having previously studied at St Andrews (where I went to school), were partly responsible for getting me my first job after I graduated from Aberdeen in 1980.
It's a story I have told several times before, but I was first introduced to Madsen and Eamonn by a mutual friend (Peter Young) in a pub in Victoria Street, London.
Michael Forsyth was a friend and fellow alumni of Madsen and Eamonn’s at St Andrews and he later joined us for a drink because the pub was close to Westminster City Hall and Michael was, at that time, a Westminster City councillor.
Two days later, after a short interview, he offered me a job at KH Publicity, the PR company where he was already a director in his mid twenties.
(My initial salary, since you didn't ask, was £3,500 per annum, rising to £5,000 after six months.)
I worked for Michael for a little over two years, including 18 months at Michael Forsyth Associates which he set up after leaving KH Publicity and taking two of his colleagues (including me) with him.
Last night Michael (now Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and a former Secretary of State for Scotland) was one of three guest speakers, the others being Lord Borwick and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.
There was time for only a few words with him before he had to rush off in response to a division bell, but I reminded him that the last time we met was at the wedding of a mutual Scottish acquaintance.
I was convinced it was only ten years ago but I've just looked it up and it was, in fact, in 2007.
Either way, Michael had no recollection of the wedding at all, although I remember it well and I know he was there because we shared a table in the marquee where the reception was held in what I think was a farm steading in rural Stirlingshire!
Last but not least, I had lunch this week with an American friend, writer and economist Todd Buchholz, who I first met in Washington DC in 1983 and whose musical Glory Ride (which he wrote with his daughter Victoria) is currently at the Charing Cross Theatre until the end of July.
The story of Glory Ride deserves its own post (and I shall write about it later), but I can tell you that we had lunch at Boulevard Brasserie, a French restaurant in Covent Garden.
I didn't book the restaurant, or even suggest it. Todd did, and here's the thing.
Shortly after Boulevard Brasserie opened in 1991, I interviewed the owner and proprietor for a magazine I was editing.
A short while after that I organised a party there for 100+ people.
Again, I remember it well because was a hot summer evening and guests were spilling out on to the pavement because it was cooler outside than in.
Connections? I’ve got a few!
See also: A day to remember, the unveiling of a statue of Adam Smith in Edinburgh in July 2008.