ARTS / Overheard

I think the actually handling in many of these pictures is arid, clinical, and to me reeks of the camera. Or occasionally you get rather adventurous efforts, which are almost more disastrous.

Sir Oliver Millar, ex-Keeper of the Queen's Pictures, on Bryan Organ's royal portraits. Omnibus (BBC1)

They've often said they would liketo see it burnt.

National Portrait Gallery warder on the public's reaction to Alison Watt's

picture of the Queen Mother, ibid.

Barely able to function on an intellectual level.

Bertram Fields, Michael Jackson's attorney, on the singer's condition, Independent

That's why the Tories are so disgusting, so utterly, utterly vile. They say, 'we're the party of the family', and yet they're the ones who have done so much to destroy the ties and the bonds that keep us all going.

Emma Thompson, actress, Premiere

The most I have ever been paid for anything is dollars 250,000 (about pounds 170,000). So just remember that. It's not just about big wages with me. I don't do that kind of work. I hate this whole idea of pricing yourself in some odd way.

Emma Thompson, ibid.

Apparently unemployable.

Antonia de Sancha, actress, on herself, Tatler

At the start he's a pain in the arse. You can imagine him spending all his time listening to Morrissey and reading Sylvia Plath.

Alan Cumming on Hamlet, whom he is playing at the Donmar, Daily Telegraph

People go mad and shag each other all the time.

Cumming's view of life at the RSC in Stratford, ibid.

I don't really care what people think of the programme. I just care what they think of me . . . In fact, the worse the programme is, the better for me; the better I'm going to look.

Mark Lamarr, one of the presenters of Channel 4's The Word, Time Out