At John Schlesinger's funeral at a synagogue in St John's Wood some years ago the person I stood next to said to me encouragingly, 'Come on, Stephen - you're not singing. Have a go!' 'Believe me, Paul, you don't want me to,' I said. Besides, I was having a much better time listening to him. 'No. Go on!' So I joined in the chorus. 'You're right,' Paul McCartney conceded. 'You can't sing.

Enthusiats are used to being mocked, maligned and misunderstood. We don't really mind.

It was as if he grew his hair long and smoked cigarettes because he liked to, not because he liked being seen to. This was dangerously subversive.

Between funny and witty Falls the shadow

Many people would no more think of entering journalism than the sewage business - which at least does us all some good.

Personally, I'd never seen a graphic novel. I knew they existed because friends of mine like Jonathan Ross collect them and some very literate and intelligent people really rate the graphic novel as a form.

I used many times to touch my own chest and feel, under its asthmatic quiver, the engine of the heart and lungs and blood and feel amazed at what I sensed was the enormity of the power I possessed. Not magical power, but real power. The power simply to go on, the power to endure, that is power enough, but I felt I had also the power to create, to add, to delight, to amaze and to transform.