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It's quite an interesting time, the '20s, because the politics of England were changing quite a lot, and the class structure was starting to shift a little.

England is strictly class-based. What's surprising is how many films are still made with a load of people in silly frocks running around gardens and talking in middle-class accents.

I don't like class distinction, and there is far too much of that in England.

The hierarchy of class in London was rigid. It was like a religion. It still is to a certain extent.

Even modern English people are imperious, superior, ridden by class. All of the hypocrisy and the difficulties that are endemic in being British also make it an incredibly fertile place culturally. A brilliant place to live. Sad but true.

The England I write about doesn't strike me as the real one.

I don't have a deep link with England like, say, Jonathan Coe or Hanif Kureishi might demonstrate. For me, it is like a mythical place.

Everything is about class in England, whether it's upper, lower or middle. Why should that be?

I love England and the historical aspect of it.

The old world of England was picturesque and safe in a way that L.A. wasn't, but it was so amazingly socially cruel. I had never experienced that in America - never in school, nowhere.