So whenever my editorial friends speak disparagingly of Rupert, I usually say nothing.

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Rupert and Gordon, I was told repeatedly, shared a Presbyterian morality, a belief in work and mistrust of privilege.

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The last time I questioned Rupert on newspapers as a business he gripped his nose and belted out a Bronx cheer.

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That's when I remember the famous Rupert Brooke poem about the nobility of dying for your country and the "corner of a foreign field that will be forever England".

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"I'm sure that Rupert thinks he can save the newspaper business, " said a former executive.

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If I had to guess, Rupert walks the plank along with his son.

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Two man-sized llamas - one brown called Louis, one white called Rupert - unnervingly stare me out as I wander past a Gloucester Old Spot pig snuffling among the apples at the base of a tree.

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The language used is heightened for effect, but essentially it is an accurate report of a brief conversation that took place after the show between me, a charming man who was still recovering from being mistaken for Rupert Everett (this ginger-haired fellow is, I assume, the Artist-in-Residence of the British Library), and the aforementioned Times' Theatre Critic.

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Combine this with a deliberate forgetfulness and you end up with what I saw on Fox TV the other day as I was trundling through my stationary bike exercise: Ollie North interviewing Rupert Murdoch on some history program.

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