Alan Alda

Alan Alda's autobiography is the best book I've read in quite a while, and everyone else should read it. (Really, I should have read it ages ago, but that's me - not very timely; I've only just got round to watching Kill Bill... .) There's really nothing I can think of saying that hasn't already been said about it, and the more words I use now the longer it'll take until you get to the book yourself.

But I do want to mention that, when I was in my early twenties, I ate in a restaurant in Quimper at the next table to him and his wife. One of the people I was with, my sister's then-boyfriend, met him on the stairs to the toilet, and shook his hand. (Actually, it's even more genteel than that - he met him on the stairs, asked politely if he was Alan Alda and if, please, he could shake his hand.) I'm really rather jealous of him for that. At the time I was only really aware of M*A*S*H, but now I have a much better appreciation of what an awesome man he is (plus, he's done more since then! wow!). So my jealousy has been increasing as I've kept on discovering these little cool bits of the theatre, TV and film landscape. I hate it when that happens.

Damn, too many words. Go buy the book already.