Somewhere with good walking, interesting wildlife, excellent food and a language I can understand. We recently went to El Chalten, a small town in the Argentinian Andes in southern Patagonia. It had all four!

What's the most memorable film you've seen?

I have a short memory and don't make lists of favourite films (or of anything for that matter). Two good films I've just seen are 'The Life of Others' by Henckel von Donnersmark and 'Salvador' by Manuel Huerga. They're both about authoritarian regimes, (communist East Germany and Francoist Spain), and how people deal with them. Other films I've enjoyed are Lars Von Trier's 'The Boss of it All', González Iñárritu's 'Babel' and Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth.' All three of them are healthily subversive.

I live in Spain, and I always have a quiet beach holiday every year here with my family. Apart from that, I don't really have ab 'ideal' location. My last two breaks outside Spain were to Italy and Morocco, both marvellous destinations.

Not any one in particular. I've just finished reading 'Iran Awakening' by Shirin Ebadi, which is an interesting account of a woman's struggle for human rights in that country.

It would be nice to say yes, in a lovely garden, or a cabin in a forest, but I'm
afraid the answer is no. Writing is just a job I do in front of a computer.

My favourite websites are newspaper websites, where you can read the recent news and comments. I like reading newspapers online because I have a feeling I'm helping the environment by not wasting the paper.

There are a lot of books I've come back to many times so it's hard to choose one. Perhaps 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee. It's very unpretentious and it makes you ask yourself questions about your system of values, what really matters in your life, what kind of person do you want to be. I first read it when
I was a teenager and these questions are very important at that age.

If it was to be a comedy, then Whoopi Goldberg. If it was to be a romantic comedy (and there is potential for that in my life story) or a drama then perhaps Jodie Foster.