Making English grammar conform to Latin rules is like asking people to play baseball using the rules of football.

I often feel I'm a disappointment to people because they expect me to be the guy in the books. When I sit next to someone at a dinner party I can see they expect me to be quick and witty, and I'm not at all.

In terms of adaptability, humans are pretty amazingly useless.

But I got a great deal else from the experience. I learned to pitch a tent and sleep beneath the stars. For a brief, proud period I was slender and fit. I gained a profound respect for the wilderness and nature and the benign dark power of woods. I understand now, in a way I never did before, the colossal scale of the world. I found patience and fortitude that I didn't know I had. I discovered an America that millions of people scarcely know exists. I made a friend. I came home.

It is always quietly thrilling to find yourself looking at a world you know well but have never seen from such an angle before.

All the things that are part of your heritage make you British - that makes this country what it is. It's part of your history. And here, unlike America, it's still living history.

Human beings would split the atom and invent television, nylon, and instant coffee before they could figure out the age of their own planet.