Taki: in defence of my friend Alec Baldwin

You know you’re old when people start writing kindly about you. Especially when they are colleagues. First Jeremy Clarke, now Deborah Ross. Debbie could of course be spoofing — if you look down at your bag of popcorn you’ll miss me — but thank you very much anyway. When my new boat is ready there will be a cabin built exclusively for Deborah Ross. The only thing she really got wrong is the moolah. If I’m a billionaire, Lord Sugar is a gentleman. This sounds a bit phoney, but if I were a billionaire I’d give 850 million away; 150 million greenbacks, or 100 million quid should be tops for everyone. One can fly private, own a boat and a decent house and take care of the children and grandchildren. Billions make people very strange and suspicious of others, and make their children even stranger. The insane idolatry of money warps minds and character quicker than any drug or liquor. I have known many billionaires in my life — inflation churns them out regularly nowadays, as does criminality in the old Soviet Union — and the only ones who live normal lives and have normal children are both Greek and although very distantly related have the same surname.

They say there is nothing more dangerous than innocents on a manhunt, and I’ve seen a few floozies play Jane Austen while trying to land some ghastly Russian slob who can count up to a billion but can’t read. Actually, I don’t mind that — a girl has to make a living, after all. What I do mind is men going after a billionaire’s daughter, most of them being ugly as sin, so stand up and be counted whatever your name is, you son-in-law of Bernie Ecclestone.