1. Tony is Anthony "Tony Boy" Boiardo, heir to the North Jersey "rackets" established with horrific bloodletting by his father, Ruggiero Boiardo, "The Boot". Ray is Ray "Gyp" DeCarlo.

2. In the HBO show, Big Pussy pleads against being shot in the face, and Tony and the boys oblige him – just like "Gyp" DeCarlo – and shoot him in the chest.

3. Some of them might not be able to stand for too long as their knees might give them a bit of gyp, but they are all sprightly enough.‘ The documentary, part three of BBC2‘s Power To The People series, goes out in May.

4. "Why," I was asked, "did you agree to read the phone book tonight?" "Because, with my back record of association with the phone industry ..." (Audience cries of recognition ... "Aah, that‘s who she is!") "What is the reason behind your reverence for the London phone book?" "Well, it‘s dense, it‘s cosmopolitan, it‘s enigmatic but well structured – it‘s weak in plot and occasionally repetitive but to me it‘s the Pynchon/Robbe–Grillet of the phonic oeuvre." "Also," I added, "it‘s the perfect thickness to put under my head as I lie on the floor when my lower back is giving me gyp." "How did you first become a phone–book addict?" "As a child, in Hull, I watched a strong–woman, on television, Joan Savage, tearing one up, and I realised, instantly, it was an act of literary iconoclasm." "It wasn‘t Joan Savage," came a voice from the audience.