Christopher Gray is disappointed that the top talent is missing from the Easter schedules

Who are the star writers of the Sunday Times? You know as well as I do. They are Rod Liddle, pre-eminently, A.A. Gill and — though it pains me to admit it — Jeremy Clarkson, the motormouth of Chipping Norton. That every one of the tremendous trio was missing from his usual slot/s in the edition before Easter was, surely, a disappointment for many regular readers.

Myself, I felt their absence so sharply as to consider it almost a swindle. One pays £2.50 for a copy of the newspaper and for that, surely, one expects to be able to read most of the top team.

Others, I suppose, might consider a columnist-lite edition pleasingly deficient — as might be, for some, The Oxford Times without me.

Radio 2 also seems to be careless in allowing its big names to be away at the same time. All last week, for instance, Chris Evans was missing from his breakfast show and Ken Bruce from the midmorning slot that follows. We made do with a pair of Balls, Zoe and Michael, instead.