In The Bob Hope Golf Classic (LWT) the participation of President Gerald Ford was more than enough to remind you that the nuclear button was at one stage at the disposal of a man who might have either pressed it by mistake or else pressed it deliberately in order to obtain room service.

Whoever called snooker "chess with balls" was rude, but right.

Ban poetry. And make sure that anyone caught reading it is expelled from school. Then it will acquire the glamour.

I was wrong, however, to suppose that Sellers thought the world revolved around him. He thought the cosmos did too, and history, and the fates... Like every egomaniac, he behaved as if everybody else spent their day being as interested in him as he was.

It's a big thing to call yourself a poet. All I can say is that I have always written poems. I don't think I'm interested in any discussion about whether I'm a good poet, a bad poet or a great poet. But I am sure, I want to write great poems. I think every poet should want that.

I won't have to miss smoking any more. Nobody smokes where I'm going: It's like a row of restaurants in California.

All I can do is turn a phrase until it catches the light.