When I was eight years old I got a dummy for Christmas and started teaching myself. I got books and records and sat in front of the bathroom mirror practising. I did my first show in the third grade and just kept going there was no reason to quit.

It's hard and sometimes it's scary. It still amazes my mother. I went home for Christmas one year and there were fans all over the front lawn hoping to see me.

My favorite traditional Christmas movie that I like to watch is All Quiet on the Western Front. It's just not December without that movie in my house.

The idea that to make a man work you've got to hold gold in front of his eyes is a growth not an axiom. We've done that for so long that we've forgotten there's any other way.

There are women who take it to the wire. That's what they are looking for the ultimate confrontation. They want a smack.

I can't understand why the front pages of newspapers can cover bird flu and swine flu and everybody is up in arms about that and we still haven't really woken up to the fact that so many women in sub-Saharan Africa - 60 percent of people in - infected with HIV are women.

I only did karaoke once in my life. It was with Courtney Love and it was a total disaster. She pulled me on stage in front of 500 people at a wedding. I'd never done karaoke before.

However much we may sympathize with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbours we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in a war simply on her account.

These days our senses are bombarded with aggression. We are constantly confronted with global images of unending escalating war and violence.

Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract from the war against terror. To the contrary confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror.