Year of living dangerously Frank McNally on the madness that was Britain in 1974

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Harold Wilson: his drinking was sufficiently concerning for an appalled aide to keep count in his diaries. Photograph: Getty Images Fans of the great BBC sitcom The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin will remember the character of Uncle Jimmy, Reggie’s brother-in-law, a paranoid British army officer. His catchphrases included “bit of a cock-up on the catering front”, delivered as he arrived yet again in time to share family meals. But he also talked obsessively about the need to prepare for “when the balloon goes up”: code for the military coup he and others were planning to save Britain from...