I cannot review the Gay Hussar every time the Labour party behaves like a self-harming teenager (‘I don’t want to be elected, anyway!’) so I went to Portland instead.

Portland is a spectral restaurant on Great Portland Street; it is a good place to feel numb. The name is neutral, bespeaking nothing beyond a vague acknowledgement of its surroundings, which is Fitzrovia and its traffic pollution; Portland, on the whole, is so understated the critic struggles to get a grip on its mysteries, as if sliding down a glacier towards ducks.