Last week I went to the UK premiere of the film Frost/Nixon. While it is mainly a gripping dramatisation of real events, it is also a brilliant meditation on fame, money, success and failure.

It is also about the transfer of power from one generation to the next. All of these are subjects that greatly interest me and, I suspect, readers of this column. In the film, Richard Nixon, former US president, and David Frost, the British journalist, are both portrayed as hugely competitive men, desperate for recognition, who took enormous risks to keep their haul of the glittering prizes. Each found staying on top even harder than getting there.