The reason that chefs become chefs is that they're not allowed into rooms with windows.

If the world were to end tomorrow and we could choose to save only one thing as the explanation and memorial to who we were, then we couldn't do better than the Natural History Museum, although it wouldn't contain a single human. The systematic Linnean order, the vast inquisitiveness and range of collated knowledge and beauty would tell all that is the best of us.

I still secretly believe that afternoons are the time for the test card and you shouldn't watch television when the sun is out.

I walk up a dune to a beach and look out to sea, but it's 100km away. The ships lie askew in their dry beds, at anchor for ever. Today is my son's birthday. Thousands of miles from here, his healthy lungs are blowing out candles. I should be there but I'm here with another boy, who puts his face close to mine and laughs. I smile back but realise he can't see it, because I'm wearing an antiseptic muzzles to protect me from his breath.

Breakfast is everything. The beginning, the first thing. It is the mouthful that is the commitment to a new day, a continuing life.

Nobody ever forgets their first night in the bush. It's among the precious, meagre handful of life firsts that remain indelible.

Television gives us the gift to see ourselves as we'd like to be seen.