• Take us back to your times at the Tatler, at the ripe age of 25.

Well, I had this wonderful break, Tatler was this tiny little magazine and I was given a chance to edit it. My motto is, 'If you don't have a budget, get yourself a point of view.' I mean, there was only a staff of 12 and I picked people who simply had a lot of attitude. And where there's no budget, we were enterprising, which I think is a great challenge and a good thing for young journalists, you know, rather than join a big robust organisation where they are just being interns. It's much better to take up something small where you haven't really got any budget and you have to be inventive.

• Or constantly complain about the fact that the other guys have so much money while I take the tube.

Exactly, that was the whole game. We also had one big lucky break at Tatler, which was the Princess of Wales story. Princess Diana, Lady Di, became the great social story, we were the social magazine and Diana was to the Tatler what O.J. Simpson in America was to cable news. I mean, in the sense, it was the big story and we were right at the heart of it because it was a social magazine. So circulation really soared as we covered Lady Di right out through the wedding and beyond. It was great fun.

... contd.