Barry Kent's father looks like a big ape and has got more hair on the back of his hands than my father has got on his entire head.

I never imagined when I began writing in the early 1960s I'd become professional and my life would be transformed.

Yes, I hate it when people call me a 'national treasure'. It takes away your bite and makes you feel like a harmless old golden Labrador.

I am from the working class. I am now what I was then. No amount of balsamic vinegar and Prada handbags could make me forget what it was like to be poor.

I don't know why women are so mad about flowers. Personally, they leave me cold. I prefer trees.

Sometimes I rant, in a comical way, about how the gods give with one hand and take with the other.

I have decided to be a poet. My father said there isn't a suitable career structure for poets and no pensions and other boring things, but I am quite decided.