10:40am Friends Blood Taking Unit, St Cross Hospital. I go for a blood test ahead of my CT scan tomorrow. Booking an appointment online means that I only have a short wait, following a delay caused by the IT system going down. After the blood test Lesley takes me down to the garage to pick up my car following the repair.

In Parliament an event is organised to mark 50 years of the Royal Navy’s nuclear deterrent. What a truly bizarre thing to do for a pointless and dangerous relic of the cold war. The event is organised by ex-Labour MP John Woodcock and as he represents Barrow in Furness is probably a piece of political opportunism.  The fact that it is attended by Labour’s Shadow Defence Minister shows how inconsistent they are on this issue. In many ways the old saying that Generals always try to refight the last war is now true of politicians. But I guess even thermonuclear annihilation is an easier concept to understand than the real frontier of modern conflict which is cyber warfare!

This all masks the fact that, as many journalists including Peter Hitchens have pointed out, the weapon is not independent at all. Navy submarines have to call at US Navy bases to have the missiles loaded and the prospect of using one without US permission is unthinkable. What a pointless waste of money!

Annoyingly the evening brings some broadband instability. Consulting BT’s service status it reports No Problem,’ But they do this every time there is a problem. A website about as useful as Trident then!