When I was a boy, I naively thought that this thing called happiness would be something I would wake up to find every day once I could smoke, drink and fornicate.

There's nothing undignified about lying about all day and being waited on by servants, sipping bloody champagne.

In most betting shops you will see three windows marked 'Bet Here', but only one window with the legend 'Pay Out'.

It's one thing to ask your bank manager for an overdraft to buy 500 begonias for the borders in Haslemere, but quite another to seek financial succour to avail oneself of the 5-2 they're offering on lie de Bourbon for the St Leger.

The only reason I would have liked to have gone to university is because I like cricket. Not a very good reason to want to go, but as good as any, I suppose.

I have been commissioned to write an autobiography and I would be grateful to any of your readers who could tell me what I was doing between 1960 and 1974.

I don't remember ever being full of dislike and hatred for people, like some kids I've come across now.