Luckily, I'm not a stand-up comedian, so I don't get the fear of standing on stage in front of a dead audience: my humorous pieces have to make it past an editor before they get exposed to the public.

Science fiction was rocket-mad for about 40 years until aerospace hit a brick wall about 1970. I would not write off space colonisation or exploration completely, but we are profoundly ill adapted for going boldly into outer space.

I write more for the children of the computer revolution, who are also interested in speculation and exploring the human condition, but approach it from an information perspective.

History is another country and might be full of fascinating incidents and places to go visit - but as a destination for emigration, it has some problems!

I am lucky because my family are comfortably off. My father has his own glass business.

My parents divorced. There was the usual awkward business of going between them, but I was mostly with my mother. She remarried to a Greek painter Nico Ghika, so we were always around artists and intellectuals.

In Positano, I like the San Pietro Hotel, which is run by a friend whose family has owned the hotel for more than 100 years.

Having parents that have been through the wars of films and having a brother and sister who have done it at the highest level, you gain an appreciation. But we've always had closeness as a family. That's our anchor.