"Have you ever been to the countryside? It's so small. And there's nothing to do." — Giles Coren

My dad Alan loved Westerns and we watched them together when there wasn't much else on TV. I had toy cowboys I'd call Richard Widmark or Gregory Peck and we'd restage the Battle of the Alamo.

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.

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

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.