Arts: Overheard

I never really liked her brutality or her selfishness . . . But I do approve of the way she walks on men and uses them, which is what men often do to women.

Helen Mirren on DCI Jane

Tennison, her character in

Prime Suspect, Independent

They are very into body language, the police. They understand it much better than actors. I can never tell when someone is lying, but they know immediately.

Helen Mirren, ibid.

When Larry Olivier came up to smoke my ganja, Noel would sort of tolerate it but was very sniffy about it.

Morris Cargill, a neighbour

of Noel Coward in Jamaica,

Harpers & Queen

I had no idea the ceremony would be so moving . . . It was possibly the march of history and being in such grand surroundings.

Bob Monkhouse, on collecting

his OBE at Buckingham Palace,

Press Association