As I said, I had no publisher for What a Carve Up! while I was writing it, so all we had to live off was my wife's money and little bits I was picking up for journalism.

As soon as you start writing about how human beings interact with each other socially, you're into politics, aren't you?

I have two ideas for novels at the moment, neither of them all that conventional, but I'm not ready to choose between them yet, let alone settle down to the process of writing.

Ah, well, I have no talent for nonfiction, that's my problem.

I'm one of those unlucky people who had a happy childhood.

The more melancholy side of my literary personality is much in tune with BS Johnson's.

As I said, I had no publisher for What a Carve Up! while I was writing it, so all we had to live off was my wife's money and little bits I was picking up for journalism.