Now that John Humphrys has called it a day, I’ll never get the chance to be quizzed by him on Mastermind. Pity. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve wondered what my specialist subject would be. Motown B-sides of the 1960s, maybe. The lyrics of Warren Zevon. Minder, 1979-1994. The inside story of the great Transport and General Workers’ Union ballot rigging scandal, 1985. As chairman of the Useless Information Society, a distinguished position I inherited from the late Keith Waterhouse, I am a veritable repository of worthless trivia. For instance, my encyclopaedic knowledge of old British television series is fairly extensive, as regular readers can attest.