“Okay, it’s half mea culpa time and half going-to-cover-my-bets-the-other-way time. The person who confided in me long ago about the extramarital status of the rock ‘n’ roll super crooner Bono has just now sent me a clarifying note saying, ‘Ah, maybe that was just speculation. I wouldn’t say it on the air.’

“I said, ‘Well, thanks for telling me this so many years ago definitively.’ But nevertheless I will retract it since I personally don’t know it. Frankly, it’s rock ‘n’ roll. I can’t imagine anybody being surprised, but that’s compounding my error, and so I take that back, too.”