Are you healthy? I think I'm pretty healthy. I'm pretty well exercised, I eat pretty well. I drink too much, but you've got to have some vices.
Ever spent a night in hospital? The last time was two years ago, when I snapped my achilles tendon. I run, and both my achilles had been getting more and more painful, but I'd had a bit of anaesthetic and I wasn't in pain for the first time in months. I got home, was making a roast chicken dinner, and I heard this noise like a rifle shot, and I collapsed. I thought I'd gone through the floor – that's the sensation.
What exercise do you take? I run three times a week for about eight miles each time. I'm completely useless with anything involving balls, bats or co-ordination, so I started running at school. I gave up and became a very fat, chain-smoking student, before I started running again in my 20s.
Are you happy? I worry about things, I get down, I get angry, I wouldn't say it's an entirely temperate life. But I like drink, I like food, I like exercise, I like company, I enjoy my job… why wouldn't I be happy? I'm a lucky bugger. If I'm not happy, who is?
What's your attitude to drugs? I tried cannabis as a student and I didn't like it – it made me even more boring, and it made me feel queasy. If I had come into the media when I was a lot younger I might well have been part of the generation that took coke, but when it was around I couldn't afford it, so I've had a virtually drug-free life. I'm not making a point about virtue, it's just how things turned out. There's almost nothing that decent wine, malt whisky or caffeine can't do for me in terms of uppers and downers.
How much do you drink? About three bottles of wine a week. My work is fairly high pressure and gregarious and you're on the road a lot, so there's a great temptation. I had to impose some kind of rule, so each week I don't drink for three days, and I do for four.
Have you ever had therapy? No. I'm deeply sceptical of Freudian theory, and beyond that most therapy seems to be conversation, teasing out issues. I'm lucky enough to have good friends and relatives. An unexamined life isn't worth living: we all examine, we all think, we all talk… that's the therapy that works best for me.
How do you feel about cosmetic surgery? For me, no. For better or worse, and it's mostly worse, I am what I am. I don't have a face that's handmade for television, but I seem to have survived.★
Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain is available on DVD
