The media should stop covering up for alcohol-addled politicians

YOU’RE not supposed to like The Sound of Music.

It’s like admitting you like tinned salmon. To hell with it. I have no shame. I like tinned salmon and The Sound of Music.

Christopher Plummer’s portrayal of the aristocratic Austrian Baron von Trapp — amused, understated and ironic — is everything I fancy in a man: heavy-lidded sleepy cynicism personified. Which is why his autobiography, recently published by Knopf, was such a welcome present to find under the Christmas tree. In it, Plummer examines his career with an instructive lack of vanity, concluding that his success, as the title of the book suggests, was achieved In Spite of Myself.