A Bluffer's Briefing On: Marmaduke Hussey

Name: Marmaduke James Hussey.

Height: 6ft 5in.

Favoured negotiating tactic: unstrapping his wooden leg and leaving it on the table.

Position 1971-80: chief executive and managing director of Times Newspapers Ltd.

Cost of 1978-79 dispute at the Times and Sunday Times: pounds 40m.

Position since 1986: chairman, board of governors, BBC.

Salary: pounds 65,434.

Sign on his desk: 'Do It Now'.

Estimated cost of over-commissioning programmes at BBC in 1992: pounds 60m.

Favourite swimming place: the pool at Buckingham Palace.

Wife's job: Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen since 1960.

Only people with power to sack him: the Queen or the Privy Council.

Relationship to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, William Waldegrave: brother-in-law.

Best excuse for lateness: 'I was oiling my leg.'

Comment when offered the job of chairman in 1986: 'I didn't think I was big enough for the job and had genuine doubts about my capacity to do it - to be perfectly honest.'