One of the great things about making 'Reel History' was meeting British people from all over the class system. It made me realise that London is a different country.
Writers are looking for a story. Using your own life as the basis for a story gives it an association with reality that's a wonderful starting point.
The success of the arts has come through a mix of public subsidy, substantial private support, and good box-office receipts, but central to Labour's post-1997 programme has been a determination to increase access as much as excellence.
That's why writing is important to me. Time goes past, and you've been somewhere and come back that hasn't hurt you, and you've been somebody else.
If I meet pals, we do hug each other, and it's very nice, you know... it's something that's come on me late and became second nature, and it's first nature now!
Darwin talks about evolution, but he doesn't say how it started. Maybe the sense of mystery will dissolve in the face of science, but I am not so sure. We are all described by the human genome, but it's getting people nowhere.
In music, the Specials brought a city, Coventry, bombed out for a second time and riven with racism, to a celebration between black and white musicians and their music.
I don't feel inferior in the slightest to anybody - or superior to anybody, let's get that clear. But I do feel different.
I'm going to try and make you take the Beatles and Eric Clapton as seriously as the Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle.
I'd been writing fiction for 50 years, since I was 19. And when you write fiction, it becomes a way of thinking: there's always a novel around. The strange thing was that after 'Remember Me,' there wasn't.
I do think the BBC could do more, but I've always thought the BBC could do more - I think there should be more arts programmes full stop.
I'm not a fan of the working class being mocked, including by some of our famous writers - even those who came from it.