I think he was absolutely right not to go to UN last week... First things first - that is values and people here in their local communities and remembering all politics is local and trusting people more.

I mean that I think I find the psychology of people more interesting than politics. I think the psychology of politics is more interesting than straight politics.

Politics is very interesting and always leads to conflict.

Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting but they have something missing in their natures there is a hole an empty place and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.

Why does it have to be politics? Is there a dynamism to that world and a theoretical capacity to do things that draws many talented people? Absolutely. Are there other ways to be involved and lead an interesting life? Of course.

The enemy is not just terrorism. It is the threat posed specifically by Islamist terrorism by Bin Ladin and others who draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within a minority strain of Islam that does not distinguish politics from religion and distorts both.

Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value.

Conservative n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.

I think we will always have the impulse towards visual poetry with us and I wouldn't agree with Bly that it's a bad thing. It depends on the ability of the individual poet to do it well and to make a shape which is interesting enough to hold your attention.

I used to write sonnets and various things and moved from there into writing prose which incidentally is a lot more interesting than poetry including the rhythms of prose.