Youve simply got to go on and on with your family and friends and tell them how much you love them because you never know whether theyll be there tomorrow, do you?

in a village you can't sack or fight with someone, as you'll find yourself stuck beside them in the hairdresser's next morning.

Go to lots of interviews, at least one a month even when you don't need a job, to keep in training for when you do.

I'm not wild about holidays. They always seem a ludicrously expensive way of proving there's no place like home.

People always assume that bachelors are single by choice and spinsters because nobody asked them. It never enters their heads that poor bachelors might have worn the knees of their trousers out proposing to girls who rejected them or that a girl might deliberately stay unmarried.

If you feel compelled to give a New Year's Eve party, don't invite people to arrive too early or they'll go off the boil before midnight.

The letter of application ... should be a masterpiece of fiction, papering over all the cracks. Get it properly typed on decent writing paper. Never let it run over the page, people get bored with reading.