Can we start by... talking about what you're doing now, which is writing a novel, right? What's that about?

Well, I'm supposed to be writing a novel, but I find that there's a sort of two-brain thing with the creative brain and the opinion brain, and that's quite hard to switch.

There are some people who can do it.

Everyone will know the brilliant Lionel Shriver, who... does these wonderful columns and then writes these absolutely great novels.

But I do find it quite difficult.

I like in my novels to find something in society that catches my attention.

And a couple of years ago, I reread Jane Eyre.

And you made damn sure that people really did know, didn't

[audience clapping]

I brought my Blue Peter annual.

Uh, I'm not sure whether that's for good or for ill.

A quarter of a century ago, I was standing in a clearing in a Venezuelan rainforest.

From high above my head floated one of the great broadcasting voices.

"And here, above the canopy of the rainforest," said that voice, "we are filming the life of birds, but there are no sodding birds." [audience laughing] Spending a few days on location with Sir David Attenborough, Natural History Unit, was one of the privileges of my life.

That small BBC team embodied what we mean by public service broadcasting.

It's a privileged situation, which is used in a dictatorial and unanswerable way.