Why Ross is all talked out

IN the late 1980s, a tall, well-dressed chap used to come into the West End comic shop where I worked, and buy armfuls of expensive vintage comics.

Even in a shopful of obsessives, this guy really liked his comics. He still does, so much so that lately he has been writing one of his own, about vampires in Prohibition-era New York.

But then, Jonathan Ross has time on his hands. Having worked in the media since childhood — he appeared in Persil and Rice Krispies adverts when still at primary school — ‘Wossy’ will turn 50 on Wednesday. For the first time in decades, television’s principal court jester is out of a job, describing himself on Twitter as “temporarily a gentleman of leisure”.