My teenage years were spent trying to look like Rod Stewart - I ended up looking like Dave Hill from Slade.

I think airports are places of huge human drama. The more I see of it, the more I am convinced that Heathrow is a secret city, with its own history, folklore and mythology. But what has surprised me is the love the people who work there feel for the place. Everyone seems to think they are plugged into something majestic.

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.

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.

I think that sometimes kids use the show as a jumping off point for talking about things with their parents.

Sultan Mehmet had good relations with the Medici family and other powerful Italian clans, especially in Venice and Florence, and at his request, they sent him artists and craftsmen by the dozen.

Common sense would tell you that the idea that Saudi Arabia was paying for bin Laden's expenses while he was living in Abbottabad is simply risible. Bin Laden's principal goal was the overthrow of the Saudi royal family as a result of which his Saudi citizenship was revoked as far back as 1994.

My father was a minister, and it was more my mother that had the responsibility of making sure the family put out an outward of appearance of living what he was preaching. She was the PR.