An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them.

It's a great privilege just to be in a film not because you're some packaging that some agent has done with the studio exec: "We need a John Travolta film."

Estate agents: like them or loathe them, you'd be mad not to loathe them.

I never quite dare to believe I'm brave enough to be an artist, but I'm on the side of artists. I think of myself as a bit of a Salieri, looking with longing eyes at Mozart.

Mind you, Mount Rushmore isn't exactly the Parthenon or the Sistine Chapel either. After the naïve daftness of the Crazy Horse monument, I find the pompous idiocy of those four presidents somehow more risible still. Wishing to show respect or feel a vicarious thrill of admiration and pride, I can only giggle. For which I am very sorry. Any loyal American reading this who feels outraged and insulted is free to explode with derisive snorts of laughter at any British equivalent.

In a dung heap, even a plastic bead can gleam like a sapphire.

A month's salary, deep regret, the telephone number of some foul rehab clinic and my lance was free.