"As no less a sage than Eddie Murphy once said ..."

You can't blame him really.

Two weeks of crap scheduling over the Christmas season - where laments of "Ben Hur? Not again for Christ's sake" are heard up and down the land, as viewers everywhere try to find televisual golden nuggets that will save them from watching Peggy lobbing the turkey at Fwiw whilst hollering about "faaaaaaaaaaaahmily" - will do strange things to a politician forced to find refuge in TCM over the festive period.

Combine this with a job-lot of mulled wine, Tesco Value mince pies (or whatever Teh Poshez eat during Yuletide) and you've got an accident waiting to happen if you are called upon to make a Serious Speech for Serious Times [copyright G. Brown].

All of which brings us, just about, to David Cameron's New Year's message in which he declared:

"For us, the strong economy of the future will be built on a strong and responsible society. The Emperor Hadrian, when asked how Rome would be rebuilt after a devastating fire, replied: 'Brick by brick, my citizens; brick by brick'."

It must have been that extremely expensive classical education right? Uh, wrong. Over to the Londoner's Diary who has consulted some boffins in the Cambridge UL: there WAS no devastating fire in Rome during Hadrian's reign, and although the Pantheon burned down and was rebuilt by the Emperor, there is no evidence that he uttered the quote Cameron attributed to him on that occasion. Over to the Londoner's Diary:

"Googling the quote, you find a few hundred hits - all attributing it to Hadrian but without any source reference - mostly on American blogs. Curiously though, all these references appear after the film Seabiscuit (2003) where the character of Red Pollard (played by Tobey Maguire) addresses the horse of the film's title as follows:

""l know. l know. l'm in a hurry too, Pops. But you know what Hadrian said about Rome: "Brick by brick, my citizens. Brick by brick."

"Seabiscuit was shown on BBC2 on 23 December. So now we know what the Tory leader, or perhaps his speechwriter, may have been doing that afternoon. Cameron should at least have consulted his Eton and Oxford contemporary, Boris Johnson, a classicist who has made TV programmes about the Roman Empire. Do they not talk to one another any more?"

Hats of to Her Maj - Gawd bless yer Ma'am - who manages a seasonal address every year without accidentally slipping in a reference to the Hollyoaks Christmas special, and here's hoping - for the sake of all our Sundays in 2009 - that Santa didn't bring Henry Porter the Spartacus box-set.