I don't like the theatre. I like plays in which the audience is addressed by the actors. I don't like seeing people talking to each other on stage as if there isn't an audience.

The only bright feature of cultural relativism's triumph is that it has become establishment orthodoxy and will thus one day be derided, resisted and overthrown.

I don't know about virtual world, I think it's more a kind of parallel world. I think the advantages and disadvantages of technology are hugely exaggerated. It doesn't make that much difference. Sure if you've got a mobile phone, you use that over your landline. But I think that life goes on and we absorb stuff.

If you have slightly pathological interest in all the components of places, it forces you to engage with them in a way that perhaps otherwise you wouldn't, and that's the only way I can put it.

For the most part, French cities are much better preserved and looked after than British cities, because the bourgeoisie, the people who run the cities, have always lived centrally, which has only recently begun to happen in big cities in England. Traditionally in England, people who had any money would live out in the suburbs. Now, increasingly, people with money live in the cities, but this has changed only in the last 20 or so years.

Brummies run themselves down, they're very self-deprecating. Whereas Yorkshire people certainly aren't.

I like extremely effeminate dogs like terriers or schnauzers. I make an exception for giant schnauzers and big poodles. Basically, I like dogs which can be dyed day-glo colours.