The fact that sometimes my mouth is a little too big and a little too open and sounds too much like a sailor.

Catastrophising.

If I had a trait that I truly deplored, I would work to erase or modify it…Probably, a lack of discipline. (Though people think that I write quickly, & don’t revise, quite the reverse is true.) To myself, I work very slowly & painstakingly, & am often frustrated by accomplishing so little. My friend Margaret Atwood has said that in the late afternoon she is likely to be overcome by a feeling of desperation that she has accomplished so little that day, & this is a feeling I share, often. It seems that I waste most of my time gazing out the window here at my (overgrown) garden; & when I am in Berkeley, where I spend about one-third of the year, I am forever gazing out the window toward the San Francisco Bay & a continually changing, always-beautiful sky.

I’m not into self-deploring.

An extra day in the week when no one can contact you.

Falling flat on my face in Billy Elliot on Boxing Day when I was 14. I fell smack bang at the end of my number. I was mortified.

Racial and homophobic slurs – the F- and N-words. When I moved to London, people screamed the F-word from their cars, and that stings.

Dying: I’m too iconic to go.

I really hope there is a big pearly gate.

Bad personal hygiene.