“The first thing I remember is that my dad had a big iron Olivetti typewriter and he worked all night.”

When I was 16 my dad taught me to drive too. Furiously. Unable to understand why I couldn’t already do it – for driving, to him, was innate in the human. It was what separated us from the apes. And from the French, who weren’t much good at it either.

You can get a decent mouthful of food in Warsaw or Chad if you look hard enough. It’s just I wouldn’t actually go there looking for the food.

My sister’s also very, very competitive but she is more concerned than I am with being liked. So she hides it away. I try to make my competitiveness part of my charm.

My time in Paris was an education in both the grimness of a relentless, grinding day job and the joys of nights in glittering restaurants.

The good fortune of my life, which has been to turn those glittering nights into my job, all came from there.

I sleep nine hours every night, I have a little nap after lunch, and, if I’m going out for dinner, I sneak in an extra one before I head out.

People think you get paid millions by the BBC if you’re famous, but me? Me, I’m in the Premier Inn in Gillingham.

I have Gordon Ramsay to thank for my TV career because Channel 4 spent a long time trying to find him a sidekick for ‘The F Word’, then he suggested me, knowing I’d stand up to him.

It doesn’t matter how much of a hurry you think you are in. Be one of the people for whom ten minutes does not make a difference.

I think unionization of labour is a great thing.

I always feel quite Jewish but I used to deny it until I was in my twenties.

Personally I ride a bicycle, travel by train and bus and campaign tirelessly for a car taxation system that will hammer ignorant, selfish, petty, fat, spoilt, stupid car abusers into giving up their addiction and walking.

I’m just a bit frustrated that in London we make such an effort to ape the New York restaurant scene. I have good friends who ape the New York restaurant scene and do it brilliantly. None of them would claim that the primary reason for going to their restaurant was the food.

As a broadly left-wing, environmentally aware urban believer in anthropogenic global warming, I am all for a total ban on motor vehicles.

How clever am I? I’m really quite clever. I mean, look, I’ve got a first-class degree from Oxford.

My dad is the best and funniest newspaper columnist. There is nobody anywhere near as good.

The only thing my famous last name got me was a foothold in the industry. That was the easy part. The biggest problem is survival. As Fazil’s son, I am expected to know everything – acting, dancing, horse riding… I am not trained in all these, and I don’t think I ever will be.

Watch for big problems. They disguise big opportunities.

PSG’s project is to dream bigger, but if you buy Messi, you don’t dream bigger – you are bigger!

We think these big people are very happy, but the truth is they are worse than us. We are just worried about one thing – hunger; they have a thousand worries.

It’s the little things that make us who we are in the bigger world.

I think life goes through a cycle of losing and refinding yourself all the time. Everyone has disappointments all the time, some of them pretty small, some of them pretty big.

There is such a hype and a big build up to me, and it’s very hard to meet those expectations. That’s been a big stress in my life.

Travelling so much, sometimes my luggage goes astray. But I can get the right stuff sent to me overnight by a special shipper. No big deal.