So maybe I don’t try to figure it out. Maybe I just aim to get the couch right: strong bones, high-quality leather, something earthy and animal and real. A surface that knows something of what it was to be alive, that warms to our touch and cools in our absence. Also: an expansive bench that fits all of us. Something that will hold us through everything that lies ahead — the loving, collapsing and nuzzling. The dying, the grieving.

A book of passwords for all the electrical stuff in the house.

So it seems to be my responsibility, particularly to my children, also to my wife and friends, is not to be Pollyanna and pretend everything's okay no one would take me seriously if I said that but it's to be as present in their lives now as I can be so that in years to come, they don't feel either guilty or bad at my having been left out of their lives, that they feel still a very strong not a memory of particular actions but a memory of a complete family rather than a broken one. That seems to be something I can do or try to do.

I don’t have children. I will leave my nieces money because girls need money of their own. Anything to make women independent.

Six months ago, I decided to move house. I got a skip, cleared everything out and then thought: “Why am I doing this?” So I remained, and I’m glad I did.

To be inquisitive.

To have made people healthier and happier.

A garden chair from the Chelsea flower show. It was almost the price of a small crappy car.

I wouldn’t because everything is connected with everything else.

Time blindness.