Beloved （頭が）ひょいと動く, 都市の Brain of Britain, I 企て，努力，提案 you goodbye: A Mail legend 支払う／賃金s 尊敬の印 to 退役軍人 放送者 Robert Robinson

By Ann Leslie for MailOnline
Updated: 09:58 BST, 15 August 2011

Perhaps because I rarely listened to or watched his 質問（する） shows ― Ask The Family, Brain Of Britain and Call My Bluff ― I felt obscurely 傷つける on his に代わって when the TV news 発表するd at the 週末 that my old friend and 同僚 Robert Robinson had died, 老年の 83. He was characterised in the headline as ‘Britain’s Quizmaster’.

What? （頭が）ひょいと動く was much more than a mere ‘quizmaster’! He was the wittiest, most erudite, 肉親，親類d, courteous and literate man I’ve ever met, who ― he’d mock me now for my pomposity ― perhaps didn’t ‘fulfil his 可能性のある’.

He always spoke as he wrote: in 完全にする 宣告，判決s ― you could 現実に hear the 半分-結腸s. His orotund, florid style, which delighted in language, 結局 became 公然と非難するd as ‘elitist’, ‘condescending’, ‘old-fashioned’; but that said more about his? 半分-educated critics than it did about him.

かみそり-sharp wit: Robert Robinson 側面に位置するd by Frank Muir, left, and Patrick Campbell

I used to think, rather snobbishly, that he belonged in an idealised world of academia, of passing the port at High （米）棚上げする／（英）提議する dinners in 古代の Oxford halls, of jousting elegantly with lofty minds like his own over the 競争相手 （人命などを）奪う，主張するs to greatne ss of Balzac and Hardy.?

Instead of which he spent 18 years of jolly, inconsequential Saturday evenings, 審議ing with me and a handful of his ‘chums’ on? 無線で通信する 4’s Stop The Week ― over rather peculiar BBC ‘Jubilee’ シャンペン酒 (結局 axed in the course of one of many cost-cutting 演習s) ― about whether one could 指名する six famous men called Stan, or the? significance of a 投票 in The Sun which 明言する／公表するd that 65 per cent of ベルギー men preferred Mrs Thatcher to their own mothers.

He loathed 政治家，政治屋s and their ‘sonorous drivel’ and fell out with 無線で通信する 4’s Today programme when, as co-presenter with the cosy John Timpson, he became so allergic to 政治家，政治屋s that one day he 発表するd sourly ‘it’s impossible to make the b******s reply to a straight question!’. And やめる.
The likes of Humphrys and Paxman 借りがある a 負債 to （頭が）ひょいと動く.

'（頭が）ひょいと動く was much more than a mere "quizmaster"! He was the wittiest, most erudite, 肉親，親類d, courteous and literate man I've ever met'

For 18 years, I was the 記念品 woman on Stop The Rot (as he habitually called it). There were other 記念品 women from time to time, but 非，不，無 had an 平易な time of it. （頭が）ひょいと動く didn’t 率 women, other than his 充てるd wife Josee and his two daughters.

He was, of course, unfailingly courteous to these hapless ‘tempora ry 記念品s’, as indeed he always was to 平等に hapless contestants of Brain Of Britain, whose 失敗ing but utterly mistaken を刺すs at an answer would be 迎える／歓迎するd, 残念に, with: ‘Ah, would that it were, Mr Brown, would that it were.’ (As Stephen Fry put it, on 審理，公聴会 the news of his death: ‘Would that it weren’t, would that it weren’t.’)

After the programme, with the adrenaline still high, we Stop The Rotters would 延期，休会する to the pub closest to Broadcasting House.? One of （頭が）ひょいと動く’s favourite pub? 支配するs, in a more-in-悲しみ-than-in-怒り／怒る トン, was about how ‘women 簡単に can’t do Stop!’

競争の激しい conversation was not in our 甘い little, eyelid-ぱたぱたするing 女性（の） 遺伝子s.

‘（頭が）ひょいと動く, in 事例／患者 you 港／避難所’t noticed,’ I pointed out crossly one evening, ‘I’m a woman and I’ve been doing Stop for years!’ He looked at me and 発言／述べるd dismissively: ‘Oh, I never think of you as a woman!’ Which (as I also pointed out) was not やめる the compliment he thought it was.

One evening, （頭が）ひょいと動く excoriated David English, my then editor at the Daily Mail, by asking: ‘Why doesn’t he get a decent 職業, like stealing cats for a vivisectionist?’ I adored David as much as I adored （頭が）ひょいと動く, so I wasn’t having that. I 発言／述べるd coldly: ‘井戸／弁護士席, we can’t all be quizmasters!’

Far from taking 理解できる umbrage, （頭が）ひょいと動く would joyously repeat that put-負かす／撃墜する line to every other person who interviewed him.

He believed in the pre-emptive strike: if anyone made mock of his (a)手の込んだ／(v)詳述する 徹底的に捜す-over hairstyle, he’d usually get there before them. His barber, who would 定期的に come to his 極端に pretty house in Chelsea ーするために glue two long 立ち往生させるs of hair to his skull, used to say (によれば （頭が）ひょいと動く): ‘I have given birth to a monster!’

If I ever, foolishly, （刑事）被告 him of snitching other people’s 引用するs (as I once prosaically did about a steal from Laurie 物陰／風下), he would trounce me 即時に by 説 breezily: ‘But as you know, Ann, I am like the disreputable Autolycus “a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles!”?’ (Since I’d done The Winter’s Tale for? A-level, I knew what he was talking about, but also knew I was 敗北・負かすd.)

Robert Robinson 'loathed 政治家，政治屋s and their "sonorous drivel"'

He really worked for his money ― which was かなりの, thus enabling him to buy the Chelsea house, a 16th-century cottage in Somerset, exquisite bits of art with the requisite ‘craquelure’ (no, don’t ask) and a succession of fancy cars.

He’d been born in Liverpool, but his father, an accountant, moved the family 負かす／撃墜する south to Malden in 郊外の Surrey.

In 早期に days, （頭が）ひょいと動く used to say he （機の）カム from classier Wimbledon, 特に ‘when I’m feeling posh’. And then （機の）カム Raynes Park Grammar, a ferociously academic and 競争の激しい school ― where he 栄えるd.

He won a 明言する／公表する scholarship to Oxford and he was 開始する，打ち上げるd, shaking off low er-middle classdom for ever. His wit was not, of course, やめる as spontaneous as he liked to pretend. One beady 新聞記者／雑誌記者 発言する／表明するd the 疑惑 that he’d arrange for weak tea to be served during an interview so that he could be 引用するd as 説: ‘You could spear a shark in 16 fathoms of it!’ (Or, in the 事例／患者 of strong tea: ‘It’s 厚い enough for a mouse to trot on!’)

Were one of us Stop The Weekers to make a ‘spontaneously witty’ 発言／述べる which we’d toiled over, and which didn’t やめる work, he’d say gleefully: ‘Ah, midnight oil, my friend, midnight oil!’

When asked once if his wit would ever 乾燥した，日照りの up, he replied: ‘One is 絶えず 新たにするing oneself, but one day I will be 負かす／撃墜する to the canvas, the silence rolling like 雷鳴.’

The silence now rolls. 別れの（言葉，会）, dear （頭が）ひょいと動く. Or, as you would say as you 調印するd off one of your 質問（する） shows: ‘I 企て，努力，提案 you goodbye.’ With love and 広大な／多数の／重要な sadness.