I can understand why those primitive desert people think a camera steals their soul. It is unnatural to see yourself from the outside.

I was brought up an atheist and have always remained so. But at no time was I led to believe that morality was unimportant or that good and bad did not exist. I believe passionately in the need to distinguish between right and wrong and am somewhat confounded by being told I need God, Jesus or a clergyman to help me to do so.

Sometimes...we don't want to feel like a postmodern, postfeminist, overstretched woman but, rather, a domestic goddess, trailing nutmeggy fumes of baking pie in our languorous wake.

Cooking is actually quite aggressive and controlling and sometimes, yes, there is an element of force-feeding going on.

Also, in a funny way, if you have been happily married there are no unresolved areas, nothing to prove to yourself after the other dies.

And cooking is about balance and harmony.

I took a fortnight off. But I'm not a great believer in breaks. I don't want to be rattling around inside my own head. I did feel I was spiralling into a Kathy Burke character and tried going out, but I prefer it here. Filming keeps me busy. It absorbs me.