Few people know that I hosted Michael Jackson at the Residence in Warsaw, not too many months before he died.

I had not had the pleasure to meet him previously, but despite his evident battle with ill-health we and some of his close friends had an excellent lunch as he told many amusing stories away from all the media clamour about the alcohol industry’s life and times.

I was sad to hear of his death in August 2007. A brilliant and witty man was lost.

And if you really want to read about the dreary former entertainer by the same name, whose timely demise the BBC website has had splashed across its front page all day today, try this:

He spent his childhood singing adult love songs with the Jackson Five. He spent his adulthood pretending to be a child.

For a while, he liked to hang out at Disneyland with Mickey Mouse, one of the few A-list celebrities with whom he had anything in common – not least the white gloves, squeaky voice, snub nose, bizarre albino face bearing no relation to the jet black surround, and a penchant for hanging out with kids even though you’re well into middle age…

… It was like a racial variation on Dorian Grey: He got whiter, but his finances were an ever blacker hole…

… When asked whether he’d proposed to Elizabeth Taylor, his lips remained sealed, although that may be just an unfortunate side-effect…

Who else but ..?