"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.

A lot of my poems are about how ill I am and how I probably won't live beyond next week. I publish a poem and everyone says 'cluck cluck, how wonderful, how brave', but then embarrassingly I'm still here! You see the problem?

A loose horse is any horse sensible enough to get rid of its rider at an early stage and carry on unencumbered.

Delivering the State of the Union? That bloke couldn't deliver pizza.

They had a... dog called Bluey. A know psychopath, Bluey would attack himself if nothing else was available.

Little books are the things to write at my age, I've decided. Avoid the big ones, go for the little ones.

Prejudices are useless. Call Los Angeles any dirty name you like - Six Suburbs in Search of a City, Paradise with a Lobotomy, anything - but the fact remains that you are already living in it before you get there