If Bill Deedes didn't exist, Craig Brown would have to invent him

How else would we get marvellous scenes like this:

All I know about Mr Blair's new friend, Col Muammar Gaddafi, comes from what Imelda Marcos of the Philippines once told me over her dinner table. She had, she declared, found him very macho; but when alone with him she had told him, "You are a good man, a religious man," and that had kept him at bay.

He had begged her to embrace the Muslim faith, given her a marked copy of the Koran and sent on a dozen copies. She had reported all this to the American vice-president, who thought the CIA should debrief her. At the end of a four-hour session, the inevitable question was put: "Did you sleep with Col Gaddafi?" "What a question to ask a girl!" Imelda exclaimed to us gaily.

(via Backword Dave)