There's no reason why you can't deliver a grammar-school curriculum to an all-ability intake.

Everyone said to me growing up, "You're like an American. You have to go to America. That's your spiritual home."

I don't envy young Brits crossing the Atlantic to make their fortunes today.

I think that magazines like Vanity Fair are still operating under the old rules, and that if you come to work for a magazine like Vanity Fair, even today, you're certainly expected to treat people like Peggy Siegal very deferentially.

America thinks of itself as a meritocracy, so people have more respect for success and more contempt for failure.

I was once hired to write a column for 'The Guardian' and then got fired before I'd submitted my first one. That was unusual. Most newspapers wait until I've written at least one piece for them before firing me.

I've become a professional failure - in order to pay the mortgage I have to remain unemployed. Luckily, a disaster always seems to befall me at exactly the right moment.