I do not think that having children - I have three teenagers - keeps you young. The reverse. It thrusts you into a full-frontal confrontation with your own all-too-obvious maturity.

When I'm called unkind... that really cuts to the quick. You can say anything else that you like about me.

I do not think that having children - I have three teenagers - keeps you young. The reverse. It thrusts you into a full-frontal confrontation with your own all-too-obvious maturity.

Being blonde, for me, means never having to say: 'I'll have the honey-striped half-head of highlights for £200,' to a bored colourist in a Mayfair salon, which is much more satisfying, not to mention cheap.

In Germany, salads are assemblies of ham and mayonnaise, not trendy tossed leaves.

I think everyone can recognize the one-upmanship and the competition that go on wherever you are, especially among groups where the women don't have to hold down office jobs and instead get in a total snit about who won the longest carrot contest or took first prize for summer chutney in the August fete.

Of one thing there is no doubt: if Paris makes demands of the heart, then Munich makes demands of the stomach.