I'm the sort of person who likes to undo everything.

Public intellectuals come from a range of areas and use their expertise to comment more widely than just their field. They want to make a contribution to public space, and they stick their necks out to do it.

Emotional Literacy means being able to recognise what you are feeling, so that it doesn't interfere with thinking. It becomes another dimension to draw upon when making decisions or encountering situations. Emotional expression by contrast can mean being driven by emotions, so that it isn't possible to think. These two things are often confused, because we are still uncomfortable with the idea of the validity of feelings.

Today, 'fat' has become not a description of size but a moral category tainted with criticism and contempt.

I'd like to see much more understanding of emotional issues around hurt, abandonment, disappointment, longing, failure and shame, where they stem from and how they drive people and policies brought into public discourse.

In my mum's day, you needed to be beautiful for a very short time to catch your man. It didn't start at six and go on until you're 75, right?

When I was growing up, one or two girls were beautiful, but it was not an aspiration, right?