I am 54 and age is slowly writing itself on my face.
It was Julie Burchill who decreed that, beyond a certain age, a man should not be seen in a leather jacket.
I've always been interested in art.
The best way to prepare for a night out with a Shakespearean tragedy is to do a bit of reading up in the afternoon, eat a light supper - perhaps Welsh rarebit - and then arrive early to do some stretching exercises in the foyer before curtain-up.
Reading the play at home, however fulfilling, can never be the vivacious experience that Shakespeare intended.
The real change that paintings undergo is in the perceptions of the viewer.
Sometimes it's good to do something that you've never done before, so yesterday, I went out to buy Elton John's new album.
It is more interesting to be compared to someone famous, because it lets you gauge what perceptions people have about your appearance.
Ninety-eight per cent of laughter is nothing to do with jokes, which do not deserve to bear the weight of all the funny stuff in the world.
The history of the relationship between comedy and swimming is short indeed. Of course it is always funny when someone falls into water, but that's about it.
If you want to write something of length, however modern and radical, you must live the life of an elderly gentleman of the 1950s.
It is London fashion week, and once again I haven't been invited to any shows. This is upsetting given my well-known love of fashion, or, as I think of it, playing with the dressing-up box.
Because comedy is cheap to put on: if you've got a play or an opera, there's a whole load of people and a set, but comedy is just one man or woman. And because TV has learned to love comics - there's so many more around now than when I started out.
The moon puts on an elegant show, different every time in shape, colour and nuance.
It's the time of year when the literati give advice on what we should be reading on our summer holidays. These terrifying lists often leave me appalled at my own ignorance, but also suspicious about the pretension of their advocates.
The Bible has no doubt had much influence in its time, but it provides very few laughs. None, in fact.
Travel books are, by and large, boring. They lodge uncomfortably between fact, fiction and autobiography.
Don Quixote's 'Delusions' is an excellent read - far better than my own forthcoming travel book, 'Walking Backwards Across Tuscany.'
Occasionally I find a travel book that is both illuminating and entertaining, where vivid writing and research replace self-indulgence and sloppy prose.
The Romantic poets were the prototype ramblers, and I've often found myself following in their footsteps - although perhaps not all of their footsteps since a typical walk for Samuel T. Coleridge might last two days and cover 145km.
