No slowdown at 60 for Sigourney Weaver

"It's not always right to say there are fewer parts for older women," says the Avatar star. Great stories have characters of all ages in them, and there are still some of those in our film industry and in TV. I have more work than I can handle. The parts get better as I get older."

Still, it seems to me it's a worrying trend for the big stars if many more big blockbusters are animated: it could start making them superfluous.

Are the ladies who present BBC Breakfast sufficiently emancipated? Mandrake only asks because viewers have been protesting on the corporation's own Points of View website that they are too subservient to the men they appear beside.

"I hate the way female presenters fawningly look at male presenters while they talk," one harrumphs. "Do they behave like that when their husbands/partners are talking? It's so unrealistic!"

Another viewer takes Sian Williams to task for "practically having sex with Rob Brydon on the Breakfast sofa." To be fair, another viewer took issue with this comment. "If that is how you define 'having sex' I think you need some serious re-education! I saw the interview and would describe it as just a friendly conversation."

Even the wonderful Susanna Reid takes some flak for allegedly "tossing her hair back flirtatiously" as she interviewed Hugh Grant "like a 14-year-old schoolgirl on her first date." It has to be said that Miss Reid has never felt the need to do that with me when I periodically grace the programme with my presence.

Larry Lamb, whose character in EastEnders was dramatically killed off over Christmas, will return from the dead in the new year presenting a programme from Namibia for ITV alongside his son, George.

"George is an experienced presenter in his own right, but when we spent some time with a nomadic tribe and saw them slaughter and eviscerate a goat he looked very queasy. It doesn't faze me at all, but it's not his thing. He's a proper urban boy."

/The Daily Telegraph/