I was in the machine. My whole life. Then the machine coughed and spat me out. So I thought, OK, if I'm out, I'm out. All the way out. I was a little angry and it was probably an immature reaction. But I got used to it.

I have a kind of old-fashioned, artisan approach.

What do I miss about the UK? Sadly, almost nothing. Maybe the midnight sun, in June in the north. That's all.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

I had a brief theater background and loved the backstage world there's more backstage work in television, so I saw a job advertised and applied, and got it. That was back in 1977, when getting jobs was easy.

I wanted readers to be genuinely unsure as to whether she's telling the truth or lying. It meant making her partly sympathetic, and partly unsympathetic, which wasn't easy.

My mother still calls me Jim and that is about it. Everyone else calls me Lee. My wife calls me whatever.