When Bridget [Jones] does finally get pregnant, she 's bound to mess it up, but what I tried to show is the importance of love and kindness rather than perfection, and the importance of support from friends who help you to laugh at your mistakes and pick yourself up afterwards.

If you ask where a relationship is going too often the question has a habit of turning into where the relationship went. Unfortunately, however, God has given women an inbuilt irresistible urge to insist on knowing where their relationships are going, and to force their partners to discuss the matter at length whenever they are late for something.

In terms of parenthood, I think the pressure has amped up massively too. Some parents are setting the bar ludicrously high in terms of doing things "right," and seeing children more as products to be perfected than simply children.

It's rather fun writing a female spy, because she has so much more kit. Bond never carried a hair dryer or a makeup bag. And he certainly didn't wear an uplift bra.

9p.m. My flat. Feel very strange and empty. Is all very well thinking everything is going to be different when you come back but then it is all the same. Suppose I have to make it different. But what am I going to do with my life? I know. Will eat some cheese.

Tom has a theory that homosexuals and single women in their thirties have natural bonding: both being accustomed to disappointing their parents and being treated as freaks by society.

I will not Drink more than fourteen alcohol units a week.