I have quite a few different Bibles. Having rejected my parents' religion I still think the King James Bible is the most important work of literature in English. None of us can help being influenced by it.

Religion is compulsory in English schools you know.

You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion.

In England it's a rare thing to see a player smoking but all in all I prefer that to an alcoholic. The relationship with alcohol is a real problem in English football and in the short term it's much more harmful to a sportsman. It weakens the body which becomes more susceptible to injury.

Ah the bond between English boys and California girls. For those of us who aren't either it's a bond that fascinates and mystifies. So much of the world's favorite music comes out of that relationship.

For us sons of France political sentiment is a passion while for the Englishmen politics are a question of business.

London in the '70s was a pretty catastrophic dump I can tell you. We had every kind of industrial trouble we had severe energy problems we were under constant terrorist attack from Irish terrorist groups who started a bombing campaign in English cities politics were fantastically polarized between left and right.

I don't know why that is but English politics is just so overly white. It's very much about the class structure.

I started off in England and very few people knew I was Australian. I mean the clues were in the poems but they didn't read them very carefully and so for years and years I was considered completely part of the English poetry scene.

One of the things I've always liked about my husband is he's very good at lots of stuff. He was an English teacher when I met him. He wrote poetry and played the guitar. As time went on he decided to go into economics so he's very analytical and mathematical in addition to his artsy side.