My mother-in-law has come round to our house at Christmas seven years running. This year we’re having a change. We’re going to let her in.

I’m often accused of saying some pretty rotten things about my mother-in-law. But quite honestly, she’s only got one major fault – it’s called breathing.

Mothers-in-law do not make good house pets. Once I had the most wonderful dream i dreamed that mothers-in-law cost money and I couldn’t afford one.

I think that what I do, in terms of how I craft my words rhetorically, is fairly simple stuff. I don’t mean that to denigrate myself. I mean that in the sense of, when I write, the person that I keep in mind is my mother-in-law.

I always know when it’s the mother-in-law knocking at the door – the mice throw themselves in the traps.

My wife is the kind of girl who will not go anywhere without her mother, and her mother will go anywhere.

My mother-in-law was with me during all four of my births and when she was sitting next to me holding my hand during the cesareans, well, I craved that.

The day two girls or women can genuinely be friends to each other, we will see then no war, camouflaged or open, between the wife and her mother-in-law in any house.

When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter – that’s something.