Most people hugely underestimate the amount of 'empty space' we have in our country. Fly over the U.K., and you see that human settlement does not fill up the U.K. at all. It accounts for something of the order of 15 per cent of the landmass.

Interestingly, human irrationality is a hot topic in economics at the moment. Behavioural economics it's called, on the cusp of economics and psychology.

We Brits print banknotes out in Debden in Essex, and have contracted it out to the private sector. Here in the U.S. it is a government operation right in the heart of Washington next door to the Holocaust Museum.

I've never enjoyed sleep as much until I got the 'Today' job. There is something about early sleep that's much better than late sleep. I feel myself going to sleep; I don't just plonk my head on the pillow. It's a sort of winding-down thing.

But sometimes it's good to dare yourself to do the unthinkable. And rather than stand in front of an audience with no clothes on, I decided to have a go at stand-up comedy.

At the BBC we've had plenty of women in good management jobs. It comes and goes but there's been plenty. On air, I think there's quite a bit more we can do.

Some people harbour an awkward clash of feelings - homosexual attraction on the one hand and shame or embarrassment about that attraction on the other. It is well known that the mind struggles to sustain conflicting views.