If my kids are eating Skittles or M&Ms or something which they’re not generally allowed to eat, I’ll have to organize them by color. But I don’t think that’s absurd; I think that’s perfectly reasonable. Why would you want to eat the colors out of order?

We spent some time in our family talking about what's the trade-off we want to make. We ended up talking a lot about design, but also about the values of our family. Did we care most about getting our wash done in an hour versus an hour and a half? Or did we care most about our clothes feeling really soft and lasting longer? Did we care about using a quarter of the water? We spent about two weeks talking about this every night at the dinner table.

Listening to the sound of rain. Almost every time it rains, I start recording it. Almost each day. What else? Sensing the movements of the wind. Those very subtle things give me so much pleasure.

I come from the generation who were taught never to throw things out. I like the idea of hanging on to things and repairing items rather than discarding them. It’s not a question of money, more to do with guarding resources and not being wasteful. My children laugh at me when I sit darning a pair of socks.

My old French teacher Madame Hawksworth stopped me in Ikley car park and said, 'We never thought you'd amount to much.'

That I have lost both my parents.

But I should have more confidence, it's ridiculous.

I'm a cryer. The family has a competition to see who can get me going at Christmas. The last time I blubbed was on my birthday, when my daughter gave me a framed photo of my 15-month-old grandson Hugo, but I have been known to shed a tear at The Railway Children or Pretty Woman.

Alan Bennett. He's enormously good company, very funny, generous with his time, frighteningly intelligent - and a Yorkshireman.

Eric Idle’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. That’s me, really.