There is a whole genre of funny travel writers - that's very popular. There's Bill Bryson and people who follow that route and sell travel writing through making people laugh. It's a very difficult group to take. The line between comedy and mockery is sometimes a bit thin.

That's more about lifestyle [Peter Mayles], living abroad. It's about buying a donkey and house in south France, and that's a slightly different thing. A very popular genre but that's not quite my thing.

I feel better off doing what I know how to do. I feel a strong element of fictional style in travel writing anyway. Some call it creative nonfiction.

I am no apologist for Fidel's [Castro] regime. It is, after all, a totalitarian regime. So I would like to see that change.

My parents don't think about Europe at all. The Continent is somewhere else. And they call it the Continent - to reflect, they are no real part of it.

I don't therefore know how to write for the big papers. It must be kids - students - and retired people. And the reality is they are overwhelmed with people sending in their holiday stories and bits and pieces and so on.

Radio is very popular [in Britain], but it doesn't connect us in the same way. It seems to have this community function.