I remember once...

[avevale_intelligencer]

...watching Junior Points of View, the BBC's lettercol for kids, at that time presented by Robert Robinson I believe. I can't remember what led up to it, but I still remember with some clarity a balding, bearded man, with a voice for which the word "sonorous" might well have been coined, explaining (and demonstrating) that to be unnerving all you had to do was speak slowly and quietly while keeping your face perfectly still except for the eyes.

This good advice has served me well throughout the years, and even though I didn't recognise the man at the time I came to know him later as a friendly and funny voice and a fund of improbable knowledge.

And now he's dead. And that makes me sad.