Gentle, genteel, benevolent and tolerant bon viveur cum Literary Review editor and author of Will This Do? Or snarling, snobbish, splenetic, racist, sexist, sadistic erstwhile Private Eye and current Telegraph columnist? Bron, Brontosaurus and Auberon Waugh are sitting in the same armchair in his Academy Club in Soho, to which members serving prison sentences don’t have to pay their subscriptions and wherein he hopes to provide refuge from insufferable bores.

He has given up smoking because he couldn’t get up the stairs; so now he has a buck’s fizz in his hand and a review of his book, which elicits a great sigh.

He’s portly with a sticking-out tummy, one odd eye and gingery hair that is thinning. It has been said that he was born looking middle-aged. Now, aged 51, he says he jolly well is middle-aged. (Having re-read the letters he wrote when he was 14, he says they sound like those of an affected 40-year-old. ‘So it could just be part of my character.’) ‘My self-image has gone through a total change since I saw myself on this bloody television programme yesterday,’ says this man who lost one lung, spleen, forefingers and various ribs in the Army, trying to unblock a machine gun. ‘I had the shock of watching this great monster waddling across the screen for an hour and suddenly realised how grotesquely fat I am.’ He later talks about his health in a low, slightly worried voice. Psychologically, does he have a sense of well-being? ‘Yes, I do. Gross self-satisfaction I think you’d call it.’

Does he think he’s good-looking? ‘Well, I used to – but I’m beginning to think not. I don’t think it matters if you are famous enough and rich enough, you can get by without being an Adonis.’

This man with the abrupt telephone manner speaks with clipped, confident pre-war radio tones; the voice of a nice old buffer. ‘I was rather horrified to hear myself on this television programme. I sounded slightly affected, slightly camp and too upper class to be acceptable.’

He’s wearing a spotty tie, suit, tassel shoes and grey socks. ‘I dress very unexcitingly, always have, always will. In London, nearly always in suits, dark ones. And in the country, a change of jacket and either sponge-bag (checked or striped) or grey trousers. Don’t try to make any interesting statements with my dress on the whole, just proclaiming a rich, conservative sort of fellow.’

He sits deep in his chair, like some donnish Mr Toad, staring at the ceiling almost throughout the interview and with his finger under his chin. He gives little flicks of his other hand from time to time, holding court, clever and terribly funny, wanting to be entertaining and entertained. He’s intimidating, courteous, arrogant, you don’t get a jot more out of him than he wants to give, and he guards his feelings carefully.

What attracts women to him? ‘Lots of different things.’ He coughs throatily. ‘It’s eye contact as much as anything,’ he says, continuing to look at the ceiling.

‘I like delicate limbs and thin wrists and delicate hands.’ Yes, but what makes him alluring? ‘Oddly enough, I think it may be smell.’ He laughs, a socially infectious laugh. ‘I suppose it’s also people who like a particular joke or attitude to life.’

It has been oft said that he has no confidence in his powers of attraction, and envies men who do. ‘As I get older and more physically hideous, I’m more confident in my powers of attraction.’

He has written rapturously about Thai massage-parlour sandwiches. Will he tell me about them? ‘No.’ He once said he wouldn’t give honest answers to questions about sex or money. ‘Simple prudence.’

One wonders what was the single most important thing he learned in childhood? That which most affected his adulthood. ‘Hopeless question. How could I possibly answer that.’ He says he doesn’t have his father’s brooding, melancholic side. ‘I have a contemplative side, but nothing like his gloom.’

So how would he describe himself? ‘I’m affectionate, equable, good-natured on the whole, and try not to be boring.’ (His greatest fear in life is of being boring, ‘of having a stroke and mumbling and not being able to communicate.’) ‘I’m quite positive. I’d go for my character more than my body.’ He chortles.

What does he most dislike in his character? ‘Hmm, let’s think. There must be something. I don’t know, er, greedy – can’t ever deny myself a treat of any description.’ He reckons he most lacks Christian humility and forgiveness. ‘But not colossally. Though I sound conceited at the moment, I’m not. I just can’t see anything particularly unlikeable.’ He chortles again. ‘Oh dear oh dear, you are going to have fun with this. ‘I’m quite humorous, reasonably generous. I’m surprisingly tolerant of most things except horrible noises and bad smells. I run from bores and I don’t really like ugly people. I don’t take a real interest in politics or social justice or any of that rubbish.’ Private chuckle.

He suspects that ‘moronic dead-eyed usually female Guardian readers’ probably think him seriously ghastly and cruel. With justification? ‘To the extent that I don’t care a fig for equality or anything like that.’ Is there a discrepancy between the private Bron and public Waugh? ‘I don’t think my writing is all that different. I actually think it’s quite genial.’ (‘Like hitting someone with a blown-up bladder, buffoonery,’ he says later.) ‘A lot of it radiates benevolence. When I say that, people think I’m a lunatic or fool.’ He thinks he too radiates benevolence. In Will This Do? he writes: ‘All I needed was someone to attack, and Fantoni (an employee of the Eye) seemed as good as anyone else.’ Does he think he’s spiteful? ‘Sometimes – but at the Eye one just had to have enemies.’

He works prodigiously. ‘It’s an illness. I enjoy working more than almost anything else.’ This doesn’t say much about the rest of his life. ‘I know’ – weary voice – ‘I enjoy work, eating, croquet, drinking and that’s really about it.’

Is he a liar motivated by malice? ‘An honest opinion. I can’t say, ‘Ooh no, I’m better than that’.’ A nice old buffer or spiteful cynic? ‘A nice old cynical buffer.’

Lazy, ingratiating, clumsy, sly and with a defective sense of honour, as Evelyn wrote of him in his Diaries and Letters? ‘Physically I’m quite lazy. Ingratiating? I hope so; clumsy, certainly; less sly than when I was young; and not totally defective in honour – but I wouldn’t put myself up for the chivalry stakes.’ He giggles profusely.

Is he a weak and seedy sort of man who desperately wants to please? ‘No – but all journalists have to please in some way or other.’ Insecure and awkward? ‘I don’t think insecurity is – or ever was – a major feature. Sometimes I’m awkward, and sometimes I’m incredibly smooth.’ And arrogant? ‘I suppose so. The art of being arrogant is to hide it.’ He hides everything a bit.