On asked who he would invite to a dinner party he answered: "I`d have to have Jesus Christ there - I`d like to check him out. I`d also have to have [the Italian revolutionary] Garibaldi, because he`s a hero of mine, and I`d invite Shakespeare and King Henry V."

If you were stranded on a desert island, which four things would you need to survive? "I`d take a good book - Dante`s Divine Comedy, because you can never plumb the depths of that. I would also take a mask and snorkel so I could check out the fish, because I love wildlife. And I`d take my laptop, so I could surf the `net to find a way to get off the damned island! I could write my novel then as well - and decide what the meaning of life is."