Journalist

Too old at 72? Careful. Ageism is out. We'll have the law on you!

I don't go around thinking I'm attractive or not attractive. It has never occurred to me. People don't think like that where I come from... No one has ever said, 'Oh, he's a good-looking bloke.' They just didn't use those words about men.

In an arts programme, my job was to go where the talent was. And the talent was in popular culture.

I've been writing since I was 19.

Dame Barbara Cartland was an endearing eccentric, and when I interviewed her, she wanted me to listen to her dictating to her secretary one of those romantic novels that she turned out fortnightly.

The class barricades have been stormed by the forces of a broad culture, which is made up of clusters of individuals who have decided for themselves what they will be in society.

I'll never forget my interview with Barry Humphries - one of the oddest I've ever done. He insisted that for half the time he appeared as Dame Edna. So I interviewed the real Barry Humphries in a suit and tie, and then I interviewed Edna in full fig in her dressing room, where she criticised Barry mercilessly.

I've been making arts programmes for almost 50 years, and every day, I can't believe my luck.

In a sense, Bond ousted the cowboy as the screen hero, and Ken Adams replaced the horse with technology.

I sometimes think the only true record of England is the 'Cumberland News.'

Now, perfectly ordinary people will give each other hugs. I mean, it used to be that a hug was reserved for if you came back from Australia - you know, back in the '40s and '50s.

A structure is a bit like a story. People will go along with you - they see where you're going.

Grime reminds me, if there is an echo, of sort of near enough like Liverpool in the very early Sixties. It's a lot of kids obsessed with music - obsessed with it.

In the 40 or so years I've known David Puttnam, not only has he pursued an outstanding career in films and now politics, but he has been the keeper of the flame of the British film industry.

Control, like curiosity, can be an exterminator.

My memory seems to be holding on quite well. There is no reason why it shouldn't if you keep training it.

I was brought up in a strong working-class community by working-class parents and relations until I was 18, and that's what I really am. Now all sorts of things have been added, but that's what I am.

A lot of the novels that I've really enjoyed in my life, whether it's Tolstoy's 'Cossacks,' or 'Sons and Lovers' or 'Jude the Obscure' or 'David Copperfield' or 'Herzog,' have an autobiographical spine.

We were working class, and you don't lose that. Later on, I bolted on media middle class... and now people like me are in the House of Lords.

Connery made Bond real through his physicality. He did most of his own stunts and fights, and the audience knew it was him.