I got through the sexual side of my first marriage - for six years! - by pretending that my husband was my friend Peter York. - Julie Burchill

A woman who looks like a girl and thinks like a man is the best sort, the most enjoyable to be with and the most pleasurable to have and to hold.

We may be saddled with Bush and Blair, but you've got Prince Charles (a big friend of the Islamic world, probably because of its large number of feudal kingdoms and hardline attitude to uppity women), the Catholic church (taking a brief break from buggering babies to condemn any western attack as "morally unacceptable") and posturing pansies such as Sean Penn, Sheryl Crow and Damon Albarn.

Writing is more than anything a compulsion, like some people wash their hands thirty times a day for fear of awful consequences if they do not. It pays a whole lot better than this type of compulsion, but it is no more heroic.