Having met Robbie on several occasions through his great mate Steve McManaman, I've always found him reserved but friendly, generous and endearingly quick with deadpan one-liners.
He was the first of the kittens to discover he could purr, the first to make endearingly clumsy13 attempts to wash himself, the first to undertake the adventure of climbing out of the wicker basket.
"Honest Abe," as he was endearingly called, lost the Senate race, but two years later was elected the first Republican President of the United States.
And Boyle, the bookmakers' favorite and international chat show darling since her endearingly awkward audition clip clocked up more than 100 million views on YouTube, lost out too.
And the mischievous smiles on the faces of some of the bridesmaids and page boys – and endearingly bewildered expressions on the others – are strikingly similar.
Whenever asked how long he expected his journey to take, he would always collapse endearingly into a fit of laughter.
