We have bodies coming home and coffins covered in flags, not just in the UK but world-wide.

I think people are more in contact now with the consequences of war than they've been for a very long time. And that's what amazes me when sometimes politicians seem to forget their history. They don't look and re-learn about what has happened before. Maybe they haven't got the memory, maybe they're already too young, but you can see how we become puffed up, and how we as a nation rise so quickly if we're not careful.

It's what I'll be singing in the morning. It won't be God Save the Ruddy King or All Things bleeding Bright and Beautiful. It'll be Orange and Lemons for Big Joe, for all of us.

We have bodies coming home and coffins covered in flags, not just in the UK but world-wide.

Often it's the latest novel that I've written that is my favourite. I'd been dreaming it for so long, living and breathing its story so that when it finally arrives as a newly published book, smelling wonderful and fresh out of the box, there is nothing like it.

There's a nobility in his eye, a regal serenity about him. Does he not personify all that men try to be and never can be?

Live an interesting life. Meet people. Read a lot and widely, learn from the great writers