Only those of us who spent time in America in the 70s, 80s and 90s will remember this delightful commentator's pieces on CBS News. Aged 92, he was a bright, witty and erudite writer.

And, let's be honest, incredibly irascible, too.

Yes; often at his best when irascible. As I used to say to Kelvin, when in need of a good column, righteous indignation works every time.

I always thought he had the wrong name. 'Andy' suggested a friendliness and informality that was never there, and 'Rooney' suggested a showbiz cheerer-upper, which, again, was far from the reality. I think he should have been called something like Ephraim Paine III, or Waldo Lineheckler. Something like that.

A nice tribute

Morley Safer is great on that tribute too; my god, 60 Minutes at its best was the supreme TV show. I watched it religiously every week on CBS when I was in America.

It's a shame that the BBC doesn't find more use of veteran news broadcasters. They more or less ignored Charles Wheeler, for example, who was so sharp and interesting right up to the end. There's so much inane padding on News 24, they could easily give up a regular ten minute slot, at the very least, for the likes of Kate Adie, Martin Bell, Sandy Gall, etc etc. In fact, a 'round table'-style discussion programme, once a week, would be very interesting. Their take on Libya, for example, would be a damned sight more wise and balanced than 99% of what the so-called 'talent' produce.