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.

I wish my parents hadn't made me feel that how I looked was linked to how much they loved me. But I do also see how hard it must be to see your child pile on the pounds and trust they'll find their own way back to a healthy weight.

If you have any power at all from being popular, then you have a duty to help people out.

My parents both had Oxford degrees, they read important books, spoke foreign languages, drank real coffee and went to museums for pleasure. People like that don't have fat kids: they were cut out to be winners and winners don't have children who are overweight.

Both Plockton and the Isle of Muck in north-west Scotland are incredibly beautiful. Sadly, Plockton has been discovered by tourists because it's where they shot Hamish Macbeth.

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'

The real me now may not be thin but she's got the cake and, if she likes, can eat it too.