Society prizes a girl for being thin more than anything else she might bring to the table.

My parents' generation's benchmark was simple: Fat Equals Bad.

I have never done a package tour in my life. It appeals in a way, but then I remind myself that you can't control the other people with you, which could turn out to be ghastly.

I met Tom Baker doing a voice-over when David [Arabella's friend, David Tennant] wasn't at all well known. We were doing this voice-over together and I said to Tom, 'Oh, my friend's a really, really big Doctor Who fan,' and he replied, 'Wait!' He got his cheque book out and asked, 'What his name?' I said 'David Tennant'. He wrote, 'To David Tennant, seventeen pounds forty five', signed it and I asked him what it meant. He said, 'He'll know'

Why has everything got to be about feelings these days? In the old days, no one knew what anyone was feeling and, what's more, they weren't expected to.

With a diplomat father, for whom foreign postings were a fact of life, my siblings and I were expected to attend boarding schools in Britain.

There is so much that is positive, wonderful even, about state schools. At a state school your kids will learn to live alongside and appreciate other kids from many diverse and different cultures.