TV veteran Andrew Marr sparked a heated debate this week when he slated the number of Gaelic road signs in Scotland.
It’s not the first time the broadcaster has hit the headlines for something he’s said – whether it’s been controversial or witty.
Mr Marr may have been born in Glasgow, but he was educated at the High School of Dundee and lived in Longforgan.
Here are five of his most memorable quotes.
1 – He stopped washing his hair
The longtime broadcaster may have had to look sharp on TV given he was regularly airing to millions of people across the country.
But he admitted to the Daily Mail in 2006 he had stopped shampooing his hair as an experiment, partly for the environment.
Mr Marr joked he did not have the “thick quiff” of Michael Portillo or the “Heathcliffesque locks” of Fifer Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Yet he still estimated he’d managed to fork out £3,000 on haircare products.
“My daily — sometimes twice-daily — shampoo was depositing a mountain of gloop on to my head, at a vast cost to my wallet and the environment,” he told the Mail.
Years later, observers noted the broadcaster’s “modest fuzz” seemed to have grown thicker – so maybe the move had its benefits after all.
2 – Heated interview with Boris Johnson
Mr Marr has had plenty of colourful interviews with Britain’s top politicians during his long and illustrious career.
Yet perhaps none gained so much infamy as his controversial confrontation with Boris Johnson shortly before the 2019 election, when he was at the BBC.
The interview with the prime minister attracted more than 12,000 complaints from viewers who felt Mr Marr had been biased.
Mr Marr accused the former Tory leader of “chuntering” at one point.
“You just keep going on and on and on – you’re chuntering,” he told the prime minister.
It’s not the only time Mr Marr has attracted the ire of viewers.
In 2018, he was rapped by the BBC over comments made about the long-running conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine.
3 – BBC criticism after leaving
Mr Marr left the BBC in 2021 after more than 20 years with the national broadcaster.
He joined radio station LBC, and became the political editor of The New Statesman magazine.
Mr Marr claimed he had been forced to “self-censor” himself around friends and family while with the BBC due to its incredibly strict impartiality rules.
He branded the corporation’s restrictions “absolutely insane”.
“Over time, I was self-censoring on air, and then self-censoring in front of family and friends, and even not saying what I really thought in the pub with friends,” he said.
“I just thought, this is absolutely insane, this isn’t why I came into journalism at all.High ”
4 – He regrets becoming a journalist
Few journalists in Britain have been as dedicated to the profession as Mr Marr during his busy and eventful career.
Yet the top political correspondent once admitted he may have taken “a wrong fork in the path”, regretting his choice of career altogether.
Mr Marr revealed he had been given the chance to study art at Edinburgh University, before opting for English at Cambridge instead.
“I might have been a happier man if I had gone to art school,” he said at a literature festival.
Mr Marr said he would regularly draw for a couple of hours a few times a week to find “space”.
The veteran broadcaster – also a celebrated author – once described journalism as the “industrialisation of gossip” in his book about the trade.
5 – Anchorman signoff
Mr Marr ended his final politics show on the BBC by referencing a particularly famous fictional broadcaster.
He quoted the catchphrase of Anchorman’s Ron Burgundy, telling viewers: “You stay classy, San Diego.”
He joked Will Ferrell’s iconic comedy character was his “mentor”.
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