I genuinely find it difficult to think of places that I'd never want to see again. It might be because part of my career has been concerned with writing about topography.

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'm not against architecture per se, I'm just against bad architecture.

Conversion requires a subtler mind. Architects don't like it, architects want to create their own landmark buildings so that people a few years hence will say, 'Oh, that building there is being knocked down, who did that one?'

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.

There is a tradition of television which isn't dross and stands up. Betjeman's programmes, which were made for 2/6d with one man and a cine camera, were amazing to watch because he was such a great talker.

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