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.

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

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.

I can't establish the veracity of what people say because only they know whether they are telling the truth. I can't look into your mind, can I?

Cantonese, which has up to nine tones as opposed to the five in Mandarin, is much more versatile and one of the richest dialects in Chinese.

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.

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.