I remember sleeping in places that were infested with rats and waking up with one trundling over my face. Actually, I hate rats! In my time, I've picked up all sorts of things in hotels-fleas, lice, tapeworm.

It is curiosity, quite right-a divine curiosity. A characteristic of the gods is curiosity.

People say we have all got to join Europe for reasons which even the economists themselves aren't clear on-at the same time we're saying, well yes of course Scotland has got to be independent. And why don't we make Wales independent too? And the north of England.

Children start off reading in books about lions and giraffes and so on, but they also-if they're lucky enough and have reasonable privileges of any human being-are able to go into a garden and turn over stone and see a worm and see a slug and see an ant.

An understanding of the natural world and what's in it is a source of not only a great curiosity but great fulfillment.

Neither have I said we have got to do this because of some pharmaceutical advantage there may or may not be. The moral issue is that we should not impoverish this world.