America is a very seductive place in terms of lifestyle and comfort, but it wasn't for me.

I'm not a natural story-teller. Put a keyboard in front of me and I'm fine, but stand me up in front of an audience and I'm actually quite shy and reserved.

I come Des Moines. Somebody had to.

Des Moines is like your typical American city; it's just these concentric circles of malls, built outward from the city.

There is something about the momentum of travel that makes you want to just keep moving, to never stop.

Roads get wider and busier and less friendly to pedestrians. And all of the development based around cars, like big sprawling shopping malls. Everything seems to be designed for the benefit of the automobile and not the benefit of the human being.

It is unthinkable to have a British countryside that doesn't have actual functioning farmers riding tractors, cows in fields, things like that.