People with children and people with their own business always pick up a ringing phone.

We have years to converse with someone, to blurt and rant, to explain our desires and anger and regrets - and oh how we squander those moments.

I've worked for law firms, I've worked for corporations, and for the past 20 years, I've been writing working for myself, and believe me it's a lot better. That's a big part of the James Bond panache, that you're responsible, 100 percent responsible, for the success or failure of your mission in life, whatever it is.

But one does not make living writing poetry unless you're a professor, and one frankly doesn't get a lot of girls as a poet.

It means working harder to do the research but I don't really mind - I don't think I have what it takes to chase criminals through back alleys and wade through blood at crime scenes.

Certainly going back to Sherlock Holmes we have a tradition of forensic science featured in detective stories.

I like the way words go together and I like the gamesmanship of writing poetry. It is such a challenge.