I have been commissioned to write an autobiography and I would be grateful to any of your readers who could tell me what I was doing between 1960 and 1974.

It's not name dropping, but not many people can say, like me, that they spent the day with the likes of Francis Bacon or that boring drunk Dylan Thomas. You don't forget things like that.

Although I have to admit I have despised a couple of people simply because they have never had a job in their lives.

I don't remember ever being full of dislike and hatred for people, like some kids I've come across now.

I enjoy doing nothing.

Oh, to me not drinking is like being dead, almost. I sit here taking endless journeys down memory lane. It gets boring.

One way to stop a runaway horse is to bet on him.

There's nothing undignified about lying about all day and being waited on by servants, sipping bloody champagne.

A lot of girls annoy me who go to university - one girl told me she was going to Oxford because it was something to do between leaving school and getting married. And I've got to pay for that being an income tax payer.

But you've got to have money for comfort, which obviously doesn't matter as much when you're young, but even so. I always like to bloody eat well and be warm. Have a drink when I want it.

One of the things that goes with getting older is that one becomes more conservative - and I emphasise that when I use the word conservative I do not mean politically.

The only reason I would have liked to have gone to university is because I like cricket. Not a very good reason to want to go, but as good as any, I suppose.

You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.

I believe though I do not comprehend, and I hold by faith what I cannot grasp with the mind.