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 aristocrat, when he wants to, has very good manners. The Scottish upper classes, in particular, have that shell-shocked look that probably comes from banging their heads on low beams leaping to their feet whenever a woman comes into the room. Aristocrats are also deeply male chauvinist, and ... on the whole they tend to be reactionary.

it's a good idea to wait a few months before joining anything when you arrive at a village. A bookseller friend who retired to nearby Oxfordshire, and was worried he might be bored, got himself on to every village committee in the first six months, and spent the next ten years extricating himself.

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?

I love the long grass coming up to meet the willows.

Always be nice to everyone in the firm on the way up. You never know who you may meet on the way down.

At home I have big vats of cabbage soup that I make to slim down.