to love means to realize there is a time to let the beloved one go

There are a handful of barbecue seafood shacks on the beach at Hat Nai Yang, which is a fabulous place to have dinner. It's very much run for locals and they serve the catch of the day, which might be lobster, white snapper or squid. It's ridiculously reasonable, too.

The thing I care about is my weight - I'm as fanatical about it as a member of Girls Aloud. I weigh myself every morning. I know exactly what I want to be - 82kg - and I try to stick to it.

Sometimes we are only aware of how happy we are when the moment has passed. But now and again, if we are very lucky, we are aware of happiness when it is actually happening.

Largely this is a class thing - writers tend to be cosseted little middle-class kiddies who think that the world owes them a royalty cheque. But just doing it - being in your room for years on end, locked in your head, alone with invented ghosts - it weakens and softens the body. And I know I can't just live in my head.

When you have a kid, money matters.

I hate Nassau and the Bahamas. It's one of those places I'd always wanted to visit since reading Ian Fleming but it was full of casinos with Americans in shorts.