Even in moments of tranquility, Murray Walker sounds like a man whose trousers are on fire.

In between the Queen and the First Lady, Nancy Reagan, sat Tony Richardson, looking very calm. Later on it emerged that this was because, having not been apprised of the placement until he was about to sit down, he had died of fright. To have expired was to be fortunate.

John McEnroe looks as if he is serving round the edge of an imaginary building.

Delivering the State of the Union? That bloke couldn't deliver pizza.

As far as talent goes, Marilyn Monroe was so minimally gifted as to be almost unemployable, and anyone who holds to the opinion that she was a great natural comic identifies himself immediately as a dunce.

The essence of a class system is not that the privileged are conscious of their privileges, but that the deprived are conscious of their deprivations.

It is a good rule in life to be wary of the company of people who think of themselves in the third person, no matter how well justified they might seem to be in doing so.