Gary Lineker

I'm disappearing from twitter for a while. Need a break from the bile. Local prejudice just seems to bring out the worst in some people.

The train's always full of football fans going up to see matches. Oh, they make sure I hear their points of view all right. They all want to have their say about their team, and make their opinions known.

The whole kiss-and-tell thing is a negative approach that often happens in a World Cup. We will see negative stories about the players and it can affect their confidence and the overall performance of the national team on the pitch, let alone the bid to actually stage the competition.

My eldest son George had acute myeloid leukaemia when he was a tiny baby, he is now 20 and doing very well. He is a mini-miracle in many ways.

What you learn is that you can't please everyone all the time.

I wouldn't want to go out six nights a week and watch somebody's reserves playing to check out a footballer to see if we're going to buy him.

I generally have a brand of brief on every day.

There is Twitter outrage at everything. Be it a pair of trousers or a short skirt, somebody, somewhere, will not like it.

The truth is I don't feel too bad for my age. I actually have a better shape now than I used to.

I just think to be a manager you've got to live and breathe and have this incredible enthusiasm for football, the whole thing. And while I love the game, and it's been a large part of my life, it's not the only thing in my life.

This is ludicrous. Seven- and eight-year-olds valiantly trying to cover the same acreage as those grown-up chaps in the Premier League is absurd. To add to the lunacy, a little goalkeeper, barely out of nappies, has to stand between posts that are eight strides apart - adult strides - and under a crossbar more than twice his height.

I've been in the public eye so long, I can't remember how it was when it was different - from my mid-20s onwards, when my career started to blossom and I became an international, world cups and things.

Diving is a really, really difficult one because a player is the only one who genuinely knows whether they have dived. You can look at it at 40 different angles and not know. And you can just fall over, too.

When I see old photos of me on the beach I don't look too bad... but it's hard trying to breathe in for such a long time when I spot the photographers!

Football is losing its heart and sense of humour.

I don't feel that I'm particularly political. I'm interested in politics; I'll express my view if I feel strongly about something, but humanitarian issues, I think, are slightly different.

Football's the big cheese, if you like. It's easy to have a swipe. There's a lot of footballers, and when they fall foul, they become big news.

I try to avoid saying 'fantastic' too often and 'obviously' is a dangerous word for all broadcasters.

I am not leaving twitter. If the mindless few defeat the thoughtful majority we are all doomed.

It's really hard for kids nowadays: you can get a decent education, but there are no jobs out there. You worry about how they are ever going to afford to live anywhere.