What I imagined doesn't require anti-gravity beams or anything too spectacular, just advances in analysing different genes, finding out what they can do and recombining them.

I do always know where I'm going in my books. I know the endpoint. I've written only two thousand words of my next novel but I know what the ending will be already.

I come from a privileged background but I worked a lot of winter seasons in the Alps and I've done lots of mundane summer jobs back in Britain where I mixed with less well off people. Maybe it comes from there but I've always felt that it's our duty to make society fairer.

We have this sense that there's something bigger than us, above and beyond. If you take away the idea of God, you need to replace it with a shared moral code. Otherwise, everybody becomes very self-centred and materialistic.

At the moment we seem to be heading in the opposite direction. However you dress it up, it's pretty obvious who is being affected by the government's cuts.

Living in France means I see the UK in snapshots. There is something quite nice about being in exile and the things you remember about places tend to be the most vivid details. You don't get that when you see somewhere every day.

When I start writing for the day, I usually read aloud the chapter I'm working on. It gets me into it and illuminates mistakes. I'm very rhythm conscious and I do enjoy repetition.