The good news is that in every deck of fifty-two cards there are 2,598,960 possible hands. The bad news is that you are only going to be dealt one of them.

I first got to know Charles in the late seventies when I wrote an article and then a book about him and I think at the time he came across as quite appealing, it was probably the height of his popularity.

A close associate of his gave an interview in which the book was described as quotes 'fiction from being to end'. I suffered trial by tabloid for a couple of weeks, lots of insults in the press, in the columns - this man should be put in the tower and so on.

He did once say the time to worry is when they stop writing about you but again I think that was pretty token of the coverage was very respectful, he rather resented the intrusions on his private life, but that was about it.

The Princess's so-called 'time and space speech' at the end of '93 about a year after the formal separation, looking back on it it's called her retirement from public life but we've seen in fact it's nothing of the kind.

It was delightful but, of course, it was pretty insulting to my professional reputation.

If you have an anecdote from one source, you file it away. If you hear it again, it may be true. Then the more times you hear it the less likely it is to be true.