I know acts and I'm not going to name names but these people sold ten million copies the first time and the second album sells three million and it's considered a failure and they're dropped and that's really a shame.

But whatever my failure I have this thing to remember - that I was a pioneer in my profession just as my grandfathers were in theirs in that I was the first man in this section to earn his living as a writer.

I made a very conscious effort to finish 'The Cypress House' before 'So Cold the River' launched because I thought that would help build a buffer between my writing and any impact that came from either the success or the failure of that first book.

But thankfully my first album 'Wide Screen ' was sort of a critics' darling - everyone raved about it but no one bought it. They only manufactured 10 000 copies I wasn't even in the running for failure!

Well I think first of all there was a failure to have real clear information at our disposal. There was a real lack of situational awareness. We didn't have the capabilities on the ground to give us real-time accurate assessments of the physical condition of the city.

My failure during the first five or six years of my art training to get set in the right direction and the disappointment which it caused me drove me the more persistently into writing as an alternative.

As soon as I did my first five minutes of stand-up I knew that I would rather be a failure at comedy than a success in marketing.

Of course Third World leaders love you. By ascribing third world ills to First World sins you absolve them of blame for their countries' failure to advance.

I failed first grade which is my biggest problem. You always feel like a failure like you're stupid.

At first I wasn't sure that I had the talent but I did know I had a fear of failure and that fear compelled me to fight off anything that might abet it.