Some years ago, I walked into one of my regular haunts - a local bookshop in Lewes in Sussex. The owner's wife, a goo friend, suddenly came up to me with a piece of paper, which she handed to me saying, "What do you think of this?"

The piece of paper read, "Is that Ian Paisly round the corner, in the theological section?"

I wandered around the corner and, sure enough, there he was, reading something or other. A few minutes later, his family - wife and sons - came in and out he went with them. The owner's wife said to me that he was one of the rudest and most surly men she'd ever encountered. No surprises there, then.