I had no intention of providing any answers or solutions, because you'd only look a fool, but I did want to talk about what it's like to be in a state where you're wondering. And perhaps I was also receptive to the fact I was entering middle age and those thoughts come - to pretend that they don't come is just crazy.

A 20-year-old is never going to give death a second thought, whereas someone in their late 50s is going to think about it... I don't know, 20 times a day.

The stuff that I have perhaps become known for that's based on fact, and English statesmen shouting at each other all the time, doesn't entirely represent who I am. I am not a politics wonk.

There's no way of telling why you want to do things beforehand. Something just grabs you. It might not grab you six months later, and it might not have grabbed you six months before, but at that particular moment it grabs you, so you jump on it.

Generally, I read nonfiction. Theres very little fiction that I enjoy enough to spend my time reading. I am generally a nonfiction guy.

To what degree are historians chroniclers of the truth and to what degree are they just novelists, frankly?

We give each other a wide berth even if we have the flu, let alone... So, I think that's part of the stigma that people who have diseases suffer. It's almost infectious... if somebody is closer to death, they're almost a bad omen and I think that's terrible.