I had never been to a fashion show before going to the Burberry show last month. It was an extraordinary spectacle. I was incredibly green and had no idea what an undertaking it is. I also have a new respect for models because they are so close to the front row and must be so self-conscious.

This week the world gathers in Beijing for the 2008 Olympic games. This is the extraordinary moment China has been dreaming of for 100 years. People have been longing for this moment because it symbolises a turning point in China's relationship with the outside world.

But I think there's something wonderful and extraordinary about climbing on your own and just that kind of relationship to the environment. I'm very addicted to the mountains. You know so I do like that solitude.

There will always be vain obsessive people who want to own rare and extraordinary things whatever the cost there will always be people for whom owning beautiful dangerous animals brings a sense of power and magic.

King's response to our crisis can be put in one word: revolution. A revolution in our priorities a reevaluation of our values a reinvigoration of our public life and a fundamental transformation of our way of thinking and living that promotes a transfer of power from oligarchs and plutocrats to everyday people and ordinary citizens.

The ordinary man with extraordinary power is the chief danger for mankind - not the fiend or the sadist.

I've realized the extraordinary power of sports to heal unite and inspire. I believe the Olympics will serve as the ultimate platform to provide positive changes and I hope to inspire all of Japan through my strong showing there.

If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics - a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage - surely that proves that you are in the right?

I will not leave a corner of my consciousness covered up but saturate myself with the strange and extraordinary new conditions of this life and it will all refine itself into poetry later on.

I think that is where poetry reading becomes such an individual thing. I mean I have friend who like poets who just don't say anything to me at all I mean they seem to me rather ordinary and pedestrian.