I went freelance in 1996 and my children are now teenagers and it seemed right.

I am a total coffee snob and bore. If anyone makes the mistake of offering me 'a coffee' they tend to regret it - I'm worse than Mariah Carey, and the hot milk rider is completely non-negotiable.

Being boring is just wrong, isn't it? You wouldn't have got anywhere being boring.

I talk to bankers, distributors, marketing people. I used to sit at home in my tracksuit bottoms, and the real excitement of my day would be going out to get a copy of Private Eye and a latte.

In Germany, salads are assemblies of ham and mayonnaise, not trendy tossed leaves.

I don't mind being called snobbish, a pain and a social climber, but being called unkind really hurts.

When I'm called unkind... that really cuts to the quick. You can say anything else that you like about me.

People always say theres no such thing as bad publicity, and you always think theyre right, because it seems self-evident: nobodys going to buy a magazine that nobody ever talks about, so people should want to buy a magazine that everybodys talking about.

I'm worried about looking like a bad person when, in fact, I try to be a good person. I don't like the public image that I've been dressed with and it worries me.

Don't worry about never having time to write. Just write what you can in the time you do have and give yourself a big clap on the back, followed by a double latte and a blueberry muffin.

Of one thing there is no doubt: if Paris makes demands of the heart, then Munich makes demands of the stomach.

If you tell the truth you get into trouble, and that's why politicians are extremely dull.

I think everyone can recognize the one-upmanship and the competition that go on wherever you are, especially among groups where the women don't have to hold down office jobs and instead get in a total snit about who won the longest carrot contest or took first prize for summer chutney in the August fete.

I do not think that having children - I have three teenagers - keeps you young. The reverse. It thrusts you into a full-frontal confrontation with your own all-too-obvious maturity.

Of course I'm naughty. I've always had to compete for attention, you see.

Being blonde, for me, means never having to say: 'I'll have the honey-striped half-head of highlights for £200,' to a bored colourist in a Mayfair salon, which is much more satisfying, not to mention cheap.