Re Tom Stoppard: my dad always loved retelling the story of how as editor at the London Evening Standard he interviewed Stoppard for a role on the paper. Stoppard had said he was interested in politics, but from Stoppard’s very broad brush answers he said he became increasingly suspicious of Stoppard’s actual political knowledge. So he asked Stoppard directly to name the current Home Secretary. Stoppard, not a man often lost for words, floundered eventually recovering to reply “I said I was interested in politics. Not obsessed with it.” Dad always said we are all the richer for the interview ending with Stoppard finding another career.