Cora only stood there, letting him talk. She may have been a stultified neophyte in the practise of her art, but at least she had the devilish ingenuity to explode an emotional bomb under Bradly's male innocence and blow its defences to tatters.

A hero exhibiting “superhuman strength” has saved the life of a motorist trapped in a burning vehicle by bending the car's door in half with his bare hands.

Therefore, welcome new Secretary of State for Transport Mark Harper, a man about whom even my esteemed political journalist friends know little - apart from the fact he was once Chief Whip, a job that requires knowing about every Tory MP's misdemeanours.

I call him Bradford because it makes me feel like I'm in a soap opera. That's what they name men on soap operas. Bradford and Desmond and Elliott and Royce.