[...] and as I walked, I tried to see the funny side. It wasn't easy, and I'm still not sure that I managed it properly, but it's just something I like to do when things aren't going well. Because what does it mean, to say that things aren't going well? Compared to what? You can say: compared to how things were going a couple of hours ago, or a couple of years ago. But that's not the point. If two cars are speeding towards a brick wall with no brakes, and one car hits the wall moments before the other, you can't spend those moments saying that the second car is much better off than the first.

Now, my mom always said two wrongs don't make a right. But she never said anything about four wrongs, and that always left me confused.

Boxing is fascinating. It's good for the soul to be made to feel clumsy. I swank around during the week thinking I'm a big cheese, but you don't feel like that when you're in the ring with a chap who knows what he's doing. It's ritual humiliation. I'm going to be slugged about and probably killed, but I love it and have to do something to keep fit.

She turned towards me and narrowed her eyes...narrowed them horizontally, not vertically.

I don't talk like House, or walk like him. I certainly don't think like him. I don't like to think for more than 15 minutes at a stretch actually; I am a fragile flower.

Screenwriting is the most prized of all the cinematic arts. Actually, it isn't, but it should be.

It is the middle of December now, and we are about to travel to Switzerland - where we plan to ski a little, relax a little, and shoot a Dutch politician a little.