For a time in the late 70s I wanted to be Ricardo Montalban.

I didn’t want to be as Mexican as he was, and I certainly didn’t want a midget scurrying about my feet wherever I went, but he oozed charm and coolness as he welcomed people to his island.

I wanted my own island. I still do. I certainly wouldn’t open it up to members of the public to trip about on like a Club 18-30 holiday. If I had a fantasy on my island it would be to fill it with people I didn’t like and send them out into a booby-trapped jungle enclosure with panthers after them.

Ricardo Montalban always struck me as a man who would have a fine musk about him, and isn’t that something we all aspire to?

Ricardo Montalban is no more. We will raise a glass to him in Ron’s and have our very own dia de los muertos but there will only be one muerto. Ricardo Montalban died yesterday aged 88. A true hero of our time.

And he outlived the midget by 15 years.