‘If you have the ambition to become a villain, the first thing you should do is learn to be impenetrable. Don’t act like Blofeld – monocled and ostentatious. We journalists love writing about eccentrics. We hate writing about impenetrable, boring people. It makes us look bad: the duller the interviewee, the duller the prose. If you want to get away with wielding true, malevolent power, be boring.’
