I got overwhelmed by the magnitude of the celebrity culture in America. My background is as a news journalist, and newsrooms in the US are shrinking - investigation teams are being terminated or shrunk on newspapers all around the country. The one aspect that's expanded is coverage of celebrity culture.

That dreadful alligator attack in Orlando would never have happened if Disney had put up real warning signs, like other Florida resorts do. But wild alligators don't fit the Disney image, so they were no proper warnings, and a child died for no reason.

I still do a weekly opinion column for the Miami Herald, and it's like shooting fish in a barrel. Rotten fish.

Actually it was the mark of the stupid, which is what you get for sitting under a tree during a thunderstorm.

One problem with age is that patience begins to ebb.

Garcia wondered why people with JESUS stickers on their bumper always drove twenty miles per hour under the speed limit. If God was my co-pilot, he thought, I'd be doing a hundred and twenty.

Everybody's idea of a great book is different, of course. For me it's one that makes my jaw drop on every page, the writing is so original.