I've always wanted to go to Timbuktu. First of all I think it has the best name of anywhere in the world.

I'm not terribly technological. I'm awfully backward about iPads and BlackBerries and suchlike; I still have a great fondness for Teletext, and I clung onto my fax machine for as long as I could, but eventually you have to move with the times.

Stephen Fry is a master exponent of the English tongue. Some people might think that he is the most irritating man in Britain, but my wife and I love him all the same.

The image we have of a famous person often bears no relation to them.

It was something of a personal challenge for me to come up with a business suitable for the Internet world and the Internet age.

Chairman Mao not only introduced Pinyin in China, but also simplified half the Chinese characters, believing that fewer strokes would enable more people to learn to write the characters.

In cyberspace, 95 per cent of what you read is hearsay.