Why is it that everything is either legendary or historic in America? Take a certain musician, who is legendary for his attachment to decadence, drugs and dark sexuality. When he dies he merits ten minutes at the end of the nightly TV news. Wait ten years and he becomes historic. No matter whether a neighborhood is tatty, ill-kept and was built in 1930 – it is clearly historic, as are most votes in Congress.

I would like to make a proposal: anyone reaching the age of 75 should be deemed historic, and if he has run anything at all in his life he should be allowed to call himself legendary.