It's an awkward name: Isamay, pronounced Is-a-may. Isa is my paternal grandmother's name (shortened from Isabel) and May my maternal grandmother's (it comes, somehow, from Margaret). The amalgamation is, as you see, strictly alphabetical. Life, I feel, would have been much easier if they had chosen Maybel.

So Bruce Springsteen, for instance, represents a kind of workingman's authenticity, just as Sandra Bullock seems to have become an icon of the Palin-esque down-to-earth hockey mum.

They would continue to suffer greatly but they have a strength that is remarkable. I am humbled by them and privileged to be with them.

Jordan Belfort was jailed in 1999 for insider trading. He had run a “pump and dump” trading scam, based on selling penny shares to gullible investors, which cost them some $200m. His autobiography was later turned into the Wolf of Wall Street movie, starring Leonardo Di Caprio and directed by Martin Scorsese.