If you travel to the States... they have a lot of different words than like what we use. For instance: they say 'elevator' we say 'lift' they say 'drapes' we say 'curtains' they say 'president' we say 'seriously deranged git.'

Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows you've closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside and the air is fresh outside. In order to get that fresh air you have to get up and open the window and draw the curtains apart.

In most people's vocabularies design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me nothing could be further from the meaning of design.

Men do change and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.

It used to happen in villages and towns in China that they would have - I guess you'd call them beauty contests - where all of the women of a particular village or town would be seated behind these screens or curtains with only their feet showing.

And when an architect has designed a house with large windows which is a necessity today in order to pull the daylight into these very deep houses then curtains come to play a big role in architecture.