It is a little theory of mine that has much exercised my mind lately, that most of the problems of this silly and delightful world derive from our apologising for those things which we ought not to apologise for, and failing to apologise for those things for which apology is necessary.

Naturally I've known girlies form an attachment to the younger male before now, but in the tennis score of the bedroom most girls in my experience would rather Love Thirty or Love Forty than Love Fifteen. Men, of course, are a whole other issue; they start at Love All and stay there until they're dragged from the court

The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane.

Wine can be a better teacher than ink, and banter is often better than books

The alarm in the morning? Well, I have an old tape of Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a perfectly transcendent version in Shubert's seventh symphony. And I've rigged it up so that at exactly 7:30 every morning it falls from the ceiling onto my face.

And of course you are mad, if by a madman we mean a mind that questions and rejects every civilized norm.

It's certainly easy to mock some things ... Oddly enough though I've never found it easy to mock anything of value. Only things that are tawdry and fatuous - perhaps it's just me.