A Sunday Times article this week by Bryan Appleyard about Clive James contained this sentence: “Martin Amis once told me that when asked how James liked his steak, he would reply: ‘Knock off its horns and wipe its arse.’” I disapprove of this for three reasons.

First, the sentence is a mess syntactically. Why should Amis have been asked about James’s taste in steak? (OK, I know he wasn’t really). Second, it contains a ghastly name-drop. Why drag Mart in at all? Only so that Bryan could flourish the fact that he is acquainted with this big-name writer.

Third, this witty observation is not in fact one of James’s. It originates with his fellow Australian writer (and comedian) Barry Humphries, who put it into the mouth of cartoon and film hero Barry McKenzie.

It comes from the 1974 film Barry McKenzie Pulls It Off, which starred Barry Crocker as Bazza and Humphries as Dame Edna Everage (both pictured). I have often used the joke myself down the years in print and in private, always careful to attribute it correctly. In its proper form it contains a final clause “and bung it on a plate”. This makes it funnier.

One person clearly not heedful of Bazza’s advice on the preparation of beef is Desperate Dan’s Aunt Aggie, who always serves her cow pies horns and all. How sad that the result of her culinary efforts will cease to be observable in the comic Dandy — in print form at least — after December. An era ends.