So the first thing you need to do about conflict is to prevent it, and the best way of preventing it is by dealing with the question of poverty.

If you have Palestinians who have no hope, who don't have a job, who've used up all their resources, the notion of getting rid of violence is a dream.

But when someone is on a winning horse, and everything looks wonderful, it's very hard as an outsider to persuade them something is wrong.

The poor people of the world tend to be the places that al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups can recruit.

I've done everything from cater, wait tables, pre-school teacher, painting, to being Cinderella, Elmo, a clown, nanny, selling hair... I would do kid's parties and entertain and do magic and paint faces and balloon animals. The highlight of my life.

By the time I reached the sixth form at my local grammar school, my father would glower at me every time I passed him with a stack of books under my arm, warning me there was no money to go to university.

Eventually, while researching, you'll learn something you didn't want to know. Some fact that ruins a plotline you had in mind. The good news is that sometimes, learning all the facts can make for a much more interesting story than you originally had in mind.

I am inspired by Nelson Mandela. I was a volunteer teacher in South Africa during apartheid, where I witnessed his success liberating black South Africans.