Well, air-conditioning is not a good thing.

I've obviously used fans - I wouldn't say all my life, because we couldn't afford them when I was young, but from my 20s and onwards we've had to use fans. And I've always loathed them. Everything about them. The way you adjust them, getting them at the angle you want. Carrying them. Cleaning them. The danger of putting your finger in them.

Well, I'm rather attracted to rather prosaic things like vacuum cleaners and hand dryers. Where people haven't apparently made them with a great love for what they're doing.

Everybody recognizes that if you can make very efficient electric motors, you can make a quantum leap forward.

Cordless vacuums are designed for quick jobs, but you need enough power to do the job; you don't want the power waning over time.

If you really want to improve technology, if you want things to work better and be better, you've got to protect the person who spends a lot of effort, money, and time developing that new technology.

I like living on the edge.

One of the most fun inventions of my lifetime is the Mini.

Now, we don't teach children in schools to be creative. We don't teach them to experiment. We want them to fill in the right answer, tick the right answer in the box.

Engineers are behind the cars we drive, the pills we pop and the way we power our homes.

Emerging markets are hugely important.

I'm not into politics but I am committed to a cause: ensuring design technology and engineering stays on the U.K. curriculum, alongside science and maths - grounding abstract theory, merging the practical with the academic.

So I think the winners in recession are the people who produce new technology that does things better, which people really want.

Apartments are getting smaller on a whole. Houses are getting smaller. People don't need great big vacuums anymore.

Business is constantly changing, constantly evolving.

The U.S. is the biggest investor in research and development in the world. It has the best universities. Keeping them supplied with the best talent is essential.

Reality TV is anything but.

Designing aircraft and racing cars is an extremely exciting thing.

If you invent something, you're doing a creative act. It's like writing a novel or composing music. You put your heart and soul into it, and money. It's years of your life, it's your house remortgaged, huge emotional investment and financial investment.

Fear is always a good motivator.

You don't get inspiration sitting at a drawing board or in front of your computer.

I don't do something necessarily to make a big profit or because it's a logical business decision.

We should learn to live more with our climate and rely less on electricity to alter our climate.

We should have A-levels in vocational subjects.