..we were always taught, instead of waiting to be swept off our feet, to 'expect little, forgive much'.

That's when the idea for Mad About the Boy arrived. It wasn't even a Bridget [Jones] story initially - then I realized I was writing in Bridget's voice and it grew from there into a Bridget novel.

But if you are single the last thing you want is your best friend forming a functional relationship with somebody else.

I come from Yorkshire in England where we like to eat chip sandwiches - white bread, butter, tomato ketchup and big fat french fries cooked in beef dripping.

Bridget Jones' Baby, at heart is about the gap between how you expect life to turn out and how it actually does.

The whole point of diaries is that other people find them and read what you've put. I did once take to writing my inner thoughts on the computer at the end of other things I was writing and ended up faxing four pages of hideous stuff to my accountant so I don't do that now.

When someone loves you it's like having a blanket all round your heart.