Among the more colourful people to have been obituarised lately was Ann Barr, pictured in both the Daily Telegraph and The Times last week in the company of her pet parrot Turkey, her constant companion over 30 years.

As the long-time features editor of Harpers & Queen Ann gifted us Brits with the names of two types of people who had previously been unidentified, to wit the Sloane Ranger and the foodie.

Until reading the obituaries I had not realised that Ann was a scion of the Barr family that made its name (and fortune) making Irn Bru, a soft drink considered north of the border to be as Scottish as Oor Wullie and a fish supper.

Though I have never drunk the stuff, I was familiar with it from early childhood from the advertisements for it in the West Lothian Courier, a copy of which was religiously sent to my father every week from his native Bathgate.

The family link means that Ann must have been closely related to Andy Barr, a convivial resident of North Oxford well-known to me over many years, in whose company (and that of others) I enjoyed a splendid lunch around this time last year at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons.

This mention of matters foodie leads me to an amusing error – well, it amused me – in Ann’s Daily Telegraph obituary.

This was the misidentification of her collaborator on The Official Foodie Handbook.

He was called Peter Levy instead of Paul Levy.

The mistake possibly originated in confusion created by the Two Little Dickie Birds rhyme or because Peter Levi, a one-time Oxford Professor of Poetry, was, like Paul, an Oxfordshire-based gourmet.

Peter, who died in 2000, was a familiar figure in Oxford’s best restaurants, which hardly seemed the thing for the Jesuit priest that he was.

Neither did his marrying my pal Cressida Connolly’s mum.