WHENEVER I’m given a posh bottle of drink as a present, I resolve to keep it just for special occasions.

With shame face, I have to admit that such worthy intentions tend to evaporate before you can say ‘corkscrew’. Halfway through the evening, I kid myself that one little nip won’t hurt and pour a large one.

The trouble is that I will probably do the same the next night and within a relatively short time, that present is no more than a dim and distant memory.

Happily, there are those strongwilled characters among us who have greater reserves of moral fibre.

I have in mind Worcester Live director Chris Jaeger, who related the following during one of our recent tete a tetes.

Some time ago, Chris held an auction of promises to raise funds for Worcester Live and MP Mike Foster donated a bottle of whisky signed by then Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown. Worth keeping, obviously.

A little later, former premier Margaret Thatcher made a flying visit to Worcester and called in at the Elgar School of Music and Huntingdon Hall where she was apparently much in awe of that temple to Methodism.

I now need to cut a very long story short, suffice to say that after much manoeuvring, the Iron Lady’s signature ended up on the bottle.

The next step now is to get John Major’s autograph, and when that has come about, Chris will be the proud owner of a litre of Scotland’s finest, signed by all the premiers of the last 30 years.

Being a man of fastidious habits and sober inclinations, I have no doubt that every temptation will be resisted so that the golden liquid remains intact.

This bottle will be worth quite a lot in years to come. But what would happen if it belonged to me? That’s a difficult one, to be sure.

● LATE summer and I’m watching one of this year’s blackbird chicks bullying a worm off a parent. Ah yes, that reminds me – I wonder what youngest daughter Alice will want to eat tonight…

● HERE’S a prediction so remember where you heard it first. Don’t ask me why, but I have this feeling we’re going to experience a winter like 1962-3 very soon. It came to me the other day.

● THERE’S a patch of wild horseradish on the riverbank at Diglis that fills the air with its tangy breath. All we need now is some beef cattle on Chapter Meadows and we’re in business.