I am the world's worst diabetic.

8.45 a.m. My mother is in the hospital grounds smoking a cigarette. She is looking old and haggard. All the debauchery is catching up with her.

I married two weeks after my 18th birthday, far too young, and by the time I was 23 I was a single mother of three small children, Sean, Daniel and Victoria, living in a prefab house.

Will you lie to me and promise to read them? Books need to be read. The pages need to be turned.

Most social problems could be helped or prevented if people had more money and practical advice.

It's no surprise to me that intellectuals commit suicide, go mad or die from drink. We feel things more than other people. We know the world is rotten and that chins are ruined by spots.

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.