I like to read my diary occasionally to remind myself what a miserable, alienated old sod I used to be.

For a long time, people assumed I was gay, so when I got married the press were all a bit shocked and made a big deal of it - and ditto when I had children. I felt very much under the microscope with paps outside the house taking pictures of me getting the baby out of the car, it was excruciating. I remember getting her out of the car seat and thinking 'oh God I'm going to drop her and they're going to take a picture'. I was so nervous. Those sorts of things are really hard.

Once you get labelled, people expect you to behave within the very narrow confines of that label.

I think self-esteem is fluid. It's not a fixed state, and so some days are better than others.

I've seen a lot of women give up after they've had three or four bad gigs in a row. It's very difficult to learn not to take nasty heckles personally.

When I was a nurse my favourite assignment was the anorexic ward. I sometimes ate as many as seventeen dinners

I find it difficult to judge myself, but people say that I have become a bit more socially acceptable over the years in terms of my material; which apparently at the beginning - though I never really intended it to be - was man hating and now is just a bit more cuddly.