I can't take UKIP seriously. I should, I must, it's our duty to take them seriously, because they're coming out with some really heinous old crap about immigration.

The Gift' doesn't deal with the neat, tie-me-up-with-a-bow kind of stories - they are grittier, messier, and not all of them have a happy resolution. You are following people and events that are more difficult, more elusive, and therefore harder to pin down.

I feel very lucky. 'Bake Off' has opened more doors for me. I was so delighted to get the job.

For me, Christmas was always about presents. As a child, we each had an allotted place in the sitting room for the ceremonial unwrapping and mine was perched beside the telly on a Moroccan pouffe. We would watch our mum with bated breath as she divided up the gifts.

The older I grow the more I see the influence of my family on my life. I didn't always see it. It was up to our parents to see that we had our education in a town that hadn't yet realized what racial prejudice was but actually knew and practiced it on occasion.

My first failure was to be born a child not wanted by his father or mother, as they parted shortly after I was born.

If parents instill a sense of civic-mindedness - and there is no better way to do that than by example - their children will probably follow.

On the rare occasions when my family talked about business, the subject was Kansas City's Boss Pendergast and his potential for muscling my dad's small gravel-and-sand operation.