I'm afraid I was very much the traditionalist. I went down on one knee and dictated a proposal which my secretary faxed over straight away.

Having been an actor and a writer for so long - 20 years or so - I felt that it would be daft to go to one's grave without having directed. It's a natural extension of writing and acting, and so I knew it would happen one day.

It's a knee, for one. I'm a running back, two. You have to be smart, three.

I just came down wrong on my knee going for a ball, and it is just one of those fluke accidents. I had to have surgery a few days before my 21st birthday.

There were many reasons (for the proposal to scrap the 2007 polls). That is just one of them.

However, one can not say that it is a negative proposal.