I was a scholarship minor public school day boy at Ardingly College and later Whitgift School. Then, straight into work as a journalist - a wonderful thing for a writer.

I realized the other day that about the only author I genuinely read for pure pleasure is one of the worst authors in the world, a guy called Harry Stephen Keeler, a long dead American mystery writer. He was probably the greatest bad writer America ever produced.

You could fire a machine gun randomly through the pages of Lord of the Rings and never hit any women.

Suggestions? Put it aside for a few days, or longer, do other things, try not to think about it. Then sit down and read it (printouts are best I find, but that's just me) as if you've never seen it before. Start at the beginning. Scribble on the manuscript as you go if you see anything you want to change. And often, when you get to the end you'll be both enthusiastic about it and know what the next few words are. And you do it all one word at a time.

The real problem with stories - if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death.

I wanted to write something that would be a comedy in the sense of making people feel happier when they finish it than they did when began it.

Honestly, if you're given the choice between Armageddon or tea, you don't say "what kind of tea?"