Diary: Praise be! Nick Clegg finds a friend in the Lords at last

Given the number of Conservative MPs who oppose Nick Clegg's plans for the House of Lords, does anyone really believe that in 2015 we will be going to the polls to elect the first batch of senators?

Lord Williamson of Horton, a leading crossbench peer, thinks not. "I am aged 78 and I expect personal decomposition before we ever agree on the composition of this House," he said. At least Mr Clegg has a friend in Lord Adonis. The former Labour minister tweeted yesterday: "Barclays in crisis. Euro in crisis. NHS trusts in crisis. And the House of Lords today is debating... England's cathedrals. Reform it asap."

Welcome Anselm, the latest Rees-Mogglet

Congratulations to Jacob Rees-Mogg, star of the Tory backbenches, on becoming the father of a boy named Anselm, after St Anselm in 1097-1109. He married Helena, daughter of the former Tory MP Somerset de Chair, in 2007. Anselm Charles Fitzwilliam Rees-Mogg, to give the babe his full name, is their fourth child.

Amis' cold comfort for the Jubilee

"I approved of the irrationally happy Jubilee atmosphere l saw in Britain," the novelist and ageing attention seeker, Martin Amis, has told ShortList magazine, "but I was oddly pleased when I heard that 500 people were treated for hypothermia after the flotilla. The notion of these people trembling away through it all seems strangely fitting." Please, somebody do him a favour, take offence and complain.

Council leader drives his people bananas

Talking of complaining, I am enchanted by the story of a furious lady from the Portchester Community Centre, in Hampshire, who lodged a formal complaint against the Tory leader of Fareham Borough Council, Sean Woodward, for "appalling behaviour" that showed "contempt for the people of Portchester". While meeting residents, a hungry Councillor Woodward was seen to lower his head from time to time – to take a bite out of a banana.

Cemetery runs out of life

The town cemetery in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, has "only three years of life left", I read in the Shepton Mallet Journal – meaning that if you live in that pleasant town, and there is more than three years of life left in you, there is nowhere for you to be buried.

The cemetery is almost full. Councillors are wondering whether it would be in order to bury the newly dead above the remains of those who died in Victorian times. As Councillor Garfield Kennedy put it, they must "weigh up the needs of people being buried today against the needs of people buried over 130 years ago".

In Shepton Mallet, they have "needs" long after they're gone.