"They said do your best, dear boy, and we'll see you at Christmas," Attenborough remembered of the series which began in 1954; the first six shows made for a budget of £1,000.
While his tongue was slightly in cheek, Gupta and many other Indian business people I spoke to this week were trying to make a point that sometimes non-Americans can make best: "Dear America, please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history.
Audubon's wife, Lucy, may be his "dearest best beloved Friend" (a formula repeated to the point of becoming suspect), but Maria is, over and over again, his "sweetheart".
You are our best and dearest friend and will be in our hearts and minds forever.
Countess Lettice was also buried there when she died in 1634, alongside the "best and dearest of husbands", as the epitaph, which she commissioned, says.
So I might best write: Dear Harry, Thank you for writing this interesting book.
He held the book open and talked about his father, glanced at the page again, and then read it aloud: Forgive my coldnesses, now past recall, Angers, injustice, moods contrary, mean or blind; And best, my dears, forgive Yourselves, when I am gone, for all Love-signals you ignored and for the fugitive Openings you never took into my mind.
"The most courteous man on either left or right, even after much scotch... our world is the poorer without him," said novelist Lisa Appignanesi, while Tina Brown described herself as "desolate at the loss of the bravest and the best, my dear old friend Hitchens".
I don't like being so blunt about a belief that some of my best friendshold dear.
My best friend and dearest companion, died on October 22, 2006.
