The problem is that it has become politically awkward to draw attention to absolutes of bad and good. In place of manners, we now have doctrines of political correctness, against which one offends at one's peril: by means of a considerable circular logic, such offences mark you as reactionary and therefore a bad person. Therefore if you say people are bad, you are bad.

What I have always liked about Brighton is its impersonality. Since the 18th century, people have come, used the place and gone home again.

No one else understands us 7th sense people. They regard us as freaks. When we point out illiterate mistakes, we are often aggressively instructed to 'get a life' by people who, interestingly, display no evidence of having lives themselves.

After university, I got a job sub-editing and for years I was a literary editor.

Truly good manners are invisible: they ease the way for others, without drawing attention to themselves. It is no accident that the word "punctilious" ("attentive to formality or etiquette") comes from the same original root as punctuation.

The reason to stand up for punctuation is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning.

To some people, the fact that I am not married, or don't have children, would be the reason I have written a book on punctuation.