I claim Dickens as a mentor. He's my teacher. He's one of my driving forces.

In the past I used to counter any such notions by asking myself: 'Would you really want President Hattersley?' I now find that possibility rather cheers me up. With his chubby Dickensian features and his knowledge of T.H. Green and other harmless leftish political classics Hattersley might not be such a bad thing after all.

A handful of works in history have had a direct impact on social policy: one or two works of Dickens some of Zola 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' and in modern drama Larry Kramer's 'The Normal Heart.'

My office walls are covered with autographs of famous writers - it's what my children call my 'dead author wall.' I have signatures from Mark Twain Earnest Hemingway Jack London Harriett Beecher Stowe Pearl Buck Charles Dickens Rudyard Kipling Alfred Lord Tennyson to name a few.

My dad is kind of a rascal like in a Dickensian sense. He just goes from career to career.

I'm not saying that people have to listen to rock music. It's a great cool thing and it can really be liberating for a lot of people but hey so can Charles Dickens so I'm not going to judge.