Sadly, as with so much about history's heroes, it's the spotting of potential fame that's the difficulty, whether it's publishing their poems, hanging their paintings, or buying their old underwear. Think of the great men whose lives passed in penury and hacking coughs due to public unawareness that their littlest possession would end up at Sothebys or the basement at Fort Knox.

Can anything match that first fine discovery of the telephone and all it stood for? That first realization that, contained within ten simple digits, lay the infinitely possible? Out there ... lay six billion ears, all the people in the world available for contact and mystery and insult, unable to resist the beckoning of one small and villainous forefinger.

There are many mysteries in old age but the greatest, surely, is this: in those adverts for walk-in bathtubs, why doesn't all the water gush out when you get in?

I sometimes wonder if the manufacturers of foolproof items keep a fool or two on their payroll to test things.

10.30 Newsnight: What Are The Chances Of World War Three Breaking Out After You Have Gone To Bed?

Being a personality is not the same thing as having a personality.

The role of humour is to make people fall down and writhe on the Axminster, and that is the top and bottom of it.