It wasn't a conscious effort to have kids later. It was just the way life goes.

I swam at school a lot. Long-distance swimming in pools, and diving, then when we moved to Hastings when I was 13 I used to swim in the sea all the time; I loved it out of season and when it was rough.

Most of us manage the fateful things that happen in our lives the best we can, certainly not to a Stalin-like 20-year plan.

When you cry, you don't look very attractive; you look snotty and blotchy. People seem to manage to cry quite prettily these days, and to me, that smacks of not being very genuine.

When you have children your house smells very unpleasant all the time.

I like reading, I like boring things, and yet I think people for ages had this image of me that I was on the tube with a chainsaw looking for any likely candidate.

I like to shock people.