The Quiet American is leaving the building

THE Quiet American – aka PR person and former stv reporter, Bob Cuddihy – almost didn’t make his 60th birthday on Monday.

Attending, at the weekend, the wedding of Chancellor, Gordon Brown’s niece, at the Signet Library in Edinburgh, he found himself having to be carted off to hospital, within an inch of plunging to his death.

Slipping on the stairs, he somersaulted the stair bannister, but instead of falling 30 foot on to the marble floor below, he somehow slid down the bannister before crashing into a wall.

Rendered unconscious, he finally woke up blinking under hospital lights, with a couple of stitches and bruising to show for his escape.