The first bit of this happened in the 60s when I managed the Yardbirds and lived in a posh flat behind Buckingham Palace. It started with a phone call. "Is that Simon Napier-Bell, the rock manager?" "That's me." It was 8.30 in the morning and I was eating my Shredded Wheat. "Who's that?" "I'm a freelancer. I've been paid to do a job on you. I've been trying to contact you for days."

Insults? Perhaps the best in the last 10 years time came from Christopher Hitchens:, "If they gave Jerry Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox." And amongst the worst, this week, from the New Zealand caddie Steve Williams when he called Tiger Woods a "black arsehole".

Last week EMI Records was sold to Universal Music. Many nostalgic pieces appeared about "the last truly British record company". In fact, EMI owed its existence to four Americans.

Earlier this year, trawling round the net, I came across a new comic-book hero - Foreskin Man, an all-American, all-flying, all-powerful, muscle-man in tights. Blonde, square-jawed, and fully-foreskinned, he flies round the world with his companion Vulva Girl, rescuing infants from circumcision. The reason for all this was a referendum in San Francisco that proposed banning circumcision for under 18s except as a medical emergency. Some of the "for" people were behind the comic book, and it led to fierce discussion. "Stiff debate over circumcision rights" was how a Californian TV station put it.

Since James Murdoch's appearance before that parliamentary committee a couple of weeks ago, amongst all the talk about his evasive manner, his shortcomings as the head of a big corporation, and whether he might or might not have been telling the truth, there's been one thing noticeably missing.