Top 3 novels of all time (impossible question, impossible!)
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Accidental Tourist, Anne Tyler
Pretty much everything by Nancy Mitford and Roald Dahl

Top 3 films of all time (also impossible!)
Withnail and I (I was at the first ever screening of this film at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 1987. Very cool. Probably my pinnacle of cool moment.)
Annie Hall
Pulp Fiction

Favourite 3 items in your wardrobe
My gold sequinned pencil skirt (Oasis sale years ago)
My navy blue 'nautical' woollen coat (Vivienne Westwood - ooooops as Annie would say)
My newest pair of jeans

Most expensive purchase
In the wardrobe... my lace and satin wedding dress. I still can't believe how much that cost and I wore it once. ONCE! Such a waste, but I can't bear to chop it up or give it away.

Currently - curtains. I have two huge, draughty bay windows and I am horrified at how much curtains are going to cost, yes even in cheapest silk-a-like. Two wedding dresses!!

Favourite gift and why
It's that gold sequinned skirt. My husband gave it to me for Christmas. Our son was born that year and I think he was saying: "Put on this lovely skirt and let's go out dancing again, girlfriend."

3 things you'd save if your house was on fire (aside from your husband and children!)
The dog! Then the children's baby things: their first shoes, their wooden blocks and all the baby books we spent so many wonderful hours reading together. Their nursery drawings and 'I love my Mummy' cards. I'd be devastated to lose these treasures!

Most embarrassing fashion faux pas – both as teenager and adult
I used to really go out there on a fashion limb. Very SJP. Sometimes good. Sometimes utter disaster. Because "style is - elegance with a dash of daring'. It takes a loooooong time to get that dash just right.

As a teenager: a homemade puffball skirt made of a scrap of Liberty fabric and some netting, so short it barely covered my pants and it unravelled. I wore this with a bulky short second-hand astrakhan jacket, stockings (eek) and flat patent pumps. People were staring. I also remember wearing wide purple trousers and a teeny orange waistcoat to a ball. Again, people were staring.

More recently, my sister's wedding. What possessed me to wear suede ruched boots and a too short boho, floral number from Warehouse?? I must have been mad. My cousin asked me what the whole 'Pocahontas thing' was? My Mum's shocked wordless look said it all!

Person you go to for fashion advice
Vogue. I've been reading Vogue since I was 11. (Yes, really! I'm a fashion fan, not a fashion player). I gave up on British Vogue a few years ago now and go straight to Anna Winatour's American edition.

Favourite 3 shops
www.netaporter.com I just love this website. It's like a magazine. It's wardrobe inspiration and it's very useful for Annie Valentine research.
www.boden.com (I know, soooo not cool but you've got to love Johnnie and his flippy, trippy, sloaney thing. Mainly I shop for the children's key pieces (!) here.)
Harvey Nichols in Edinburgh. It's a gorgeous, dangerous store with a beautiful roof terrace bar on top.

Biggest crush in book or film
Huckleberry Finn

Favourite piece of jewellery
An intricate gold, pearl and ruby pendent. Very delicate and Edwardian. Inherited along with some other lovely things from my granny.

Most romantic thing that has ever happened to you
Getting married aged 25 to my 25 year old husband. It was just a slightly nutty, dreamy thing to do. We got engaged, we moved in together and three months later, we were married. Brilliant. Sometimes, you've just got to go for it with bells on, so to speak. (I kept telling myself that we could always get divorced!)