Jack Aubrey is a tremendous tower of strength and you always want to read about him.

She [Marilyn Monroe] was good at being inarticulately abstracted for the same reason that midgets are good at being short.

Beyoncé and pathos are strangers. Amy Winehouse and pathos are flatmates, and you should see the kitchen.

One of the virtues of the NHS... it doesn't worry you about money at the moment when you're least capable of doing anything about it.

A life without fame can be a good life, but fame without a life is no life at all.

"Nationwide" featured an amazing collection of apprentice impersonators. From all over Britain, schoolchildren materialised via local studios to give us their imitations of the mighty. There were at least three uncannily accurate Margaret Thatchers, their eyelids fatigued with condescension and their voices swooping and whining like dive-bombers.

It's my mission to tell the Australians from abroad in my work that Australia is a wonderful place.