The word spinster tells you everything that you need to know about our attitude of women who choose not to marry, yes.

One of the great things about being a writer/journalist is that my boss loves me to go out and do features on being someone else. I did a feature on Kate Middleton, where I went to an incredible fancy state home in the countryside, put on a wedding dress and posed for engagement pictures with a fake Prince William.

...there is the sheer emotional, intellectual, physical, chemical pleasure of your children. The honest truth is that the world holds no greater gratification than lying in bed with your children, putting your leg on top of them in a semi-crushing manner, while saying sternly, "You are a poo.

If you do it properly, life is art, really.

But as the years went on, I realised that what I really want to be, all told, is a human. Just a productive, honest, courteously treated human.

I hate that tabloid idea of anybody who is famous having to forfeit their privacy.

In the end I want to spend my 60s writing bonkbusters like Jilly Cooper.