I Got Into New College, Oxford. The

My Job Involves Searching For 'lost' Quotations - That Is, Trying To Find Out Who Came Up With A Quotable Saying That Lingers In Someone's Mind And Which They Wish To Use For Their Own Purpose And Which They Cannot Find In Conventional Dictionaries Of Quotation.

I Was Broadcast-struck From An Early Age; I Had Saved Up For A Tape Recorder And Started Making Programmes.

My Toils In The Quotation Field Have Led Me To Formulate Two Or Three Laws About The Way People Use And Abuse Quotations. My First Law Is: When In Doubt, Ascribe All Quotations To Bernard Shaw - Which I Don't Mean To Be Taken Literally, But As A General Observation Of The Habit People Have Of Attaching Remarks To The Nearest Obvious Speaker. Churchill, Wilde, Orson Welles And Alexander Woollcott Are Other Useful Figures Upon Whom To Father Remarks When You Don't Know Who Really Said Them.

I Was Absolutely A Non-starter At Games. My Report For Rugby Said, 'nigel's Chief Contribution Is His Presence On The Field.' I Used To Pray For Rain And Sometimes It Did Rain - And We Played Anyway.

I Am Only Too Aware That I Am Open To Rees's Second Law Of Quotation: "however Sure You Are That You Have Attributed A Quotation Correctly, An Earlier Source Will Be Pointed Out To You."