I'm engaged: I'm interested in other people. I think that's just as important as knowing how to do the job.

When you're part of history, you don't know it. You're just sort of living your life.

Survivor' was, to me, an absolute reaction that the audience was having to the sort of staid nature of narrative drama on television.

I'm a voyeur. I say that with no embarrassment. If I could have a superpower, being invisible would be it, no question. I'm fascinated by human behavior; observing people and seeing how much story gets told without a lot of dialogue, and how much our brain fills in.

It's necessary to understand what real intelligence work is. It will never cease. It's absolutely essential that we have it. At its best, it is simply the left arm of healthy governmental curiosity. It brings to a strong government what it needs to know. It's the collection of information, a journalistic job, if you will, but done in secret.

What is it that unites, on the left of British politics, George Orwell, Billy Bragg, Gordon Brown and myself? An understanding that identity and a sense of belonging need to be linked to our commitment to nationhood and a modern form of patriotism.

Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behavior, attire, grace, learning and all their words azimuth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.

Clearly, nutrition is great. I was a vegan, so being an athlete and a vegan certainly sounds like it would be the right thing to prevent something like heart disease, but it's highly genetic.