I've said many times in the past that my career's not going to go on much longer; I'm not going to keep going and riding until I'm in my 30s and things like this.

Even now with the operation, with the damage done, my ankle probably is never going to be back to 100 per cent.

People are telling me I might be going back to MotoGP, but a rumour is a rumour.

I think there is no defending a title. You don't go into a season with a points advantage over anyone. So I don't think it's ever a title defence. I think you've got a different number on your bike, if you choose so, but everyone starts at zero again.

It's a business. If I could make more money down in the zinc mines I'd be mining zinc.

I just spend my money on the essentials. Just basically food and shelter.

My parents were very permissive when it came to animals. As long as we earned the money to buy them and built whatever structure it was they were going to live in, we could have any kind of pet we wanted. They would have let us have a rhinoceros if we could have afforded it.

A clear lesson of history is that a 'sine qua non' for sustained economic recovery following a financial crisis is a thoroughgoing repair of the financial system.