In creating a building, architects do think they're making the world a better place. And then they hope to make the world an even better place by making another thing which will be even bigger than the last thing... and it is part of the pathology of being an architect to believe thus, and they do believe it, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

I think television is a medium which has the potential to do great things but has been traduced by these... terrible people who rise through the ranks.

I've been offered radio but never done it, partly because the radio ideas that I've been asked to come up with, I've thought about them and then converted them to telly things.

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

In creating a building, architects do think they're making the world a better place. And then they hope to make the world an even better place by making another thing which will be even bigger than the last thing... and it is part of the pathology of being an architect to believe thus, and they do believe it, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

When I first started writing in my early 20s it was literary criticism for a very eccentric magazine called Books And Bookmen, which allowed me to write, more or less anything.

I think the French agonise more about being French, I don't think English think about being English that much. I think the Scottish think about being Scottish and the Welsh think about being Welsh, but the English don't really care. But the French think about it all the time, it's an absolute preoccupation.