Pointless to get big-headed about knowing answers

READ any actor's programme notes and you'll find these notes stuffed with every single stage part they have played since year dot. I wonder just who reads all this, apart perhaps from actors’ agents, which, when I think of it, could be the point.

- Peter Mortimer

There is rarely anything of colour or humour in these notes and after reading them I feel I know nothing about the person involved. And I am more interested in the small personal details that make individuals human; maybe their love of late night cocoa, being tickled under the armpit or their tendency to roll about in piles of autumn leaves. I cannot remember reading a single actor's programme notes and being enlightened by such information. Late night cocoa never figures.

They, the actors, should also resist any temptation to brag in their notes. The last thing any famous person should do is brag. One big example of bragging is Alexander Armstrong when he presents the quiz show Pointless, essential early evening viewing for many of us before we stick the pasta on to boil.

It's not so much prizes and awards I'm writing about here. Zander (as his co-presenters tend to refer to him) makes quite a thing about himself answering the questions which only the contestants are supposed to answer.