There have been a lot of technical advances in the bra industry over the years, (such as those with Cellophane straps that are supposed to look as if you're not wearing them), but the maternity bra is still stuck in the 1940s.

My father describes himself as a Pole of Lithuanian descent. At Southampton University, he read aeronautical engineering and then the family moved to Hong Kong - this was before I was born - where he designed aeroplanes. Back in the U.K., he worked as a civil engineer, although every spare minute was spent researching his family's history.

Family is everything to me.

I've spent my entire life spelling my surname.

A bloke once yelled out: 'You've got chubby knees.' I was 19. I've had a real complex about my knees ever since.

I'm the youngest of four in a large, exhibitionist family. The only way to get attention was to throw yourself off the top of a ladder - as one of my cousins used to do - or make people laugh.

When you have a baby in showbiz, people think you've died.

We're so used to seeing Agatha Christie's work on screen that going back to the original is a real joy.

Funders, financiers why don't you support childcare? Make it a budget line in your productions and please please let's not be ageist.

Give more acting roles to 48-year-old half-Lithuanians who just don't want to be pigeon-holed as bakery presenters.

Friends before work.

My daughters have become little judges. If I do produce a baked item, they tut at the soggy bottom and advise me to try harder next time.

Every year the British public are so generous. It is really moving living in Britain. Fundraising is something we do tremendously well.

I can't speak for every mum but once you have children, I find that I don't really get through the day without grinning about five times!

I talked to friends who are actors and who do Shakespeare loads, and they all said 'learn it so that your family wants to clobber you, they're so bored.' You can never relax, that's the problem, because when you do, a bit of Shakespeare comes up to bite your cheeky behind. It just does, if you're not really focused on it.

I'm not a trained actor, so there was always going to be a certain amount of bringing my own... I was going to say skills but they're not really skills, it's just stuff that I know how to do I suppose.

I love acting, I really do, I've always loved doing it, and it's a joy to be asked to do this. I mean, to do Beatrice, for God's sake, it is the best comedy Shakespeare role for a woman, and to be asked to do it.

It's a blessing to be able to do different things really, I feel so lucky.

I like Joan Jett's 'I Love Rock 'n' Roll' because it's got a nice low singing voice.

I love them all, there is not one member of Take That that I do not love.

I don't like it when people leave their takeaways on the street: it makes me sad and it draws foxes and rats.

We human beings are very dark, strange things.

I wish I could play electric guitar.

It's often the guests you don't expect to be interesting who are the best. On 'Light Lunch,' I remember a guest called Ivor Spencer. He was the Royal Toastmaster and he was great, a real good-time guy.