The BBC has the obligation to think big. And at the moment, that clarion call sounds an uncertain note to me.

That test should not be about ratings. What should weigh is the knowledge that a public broadcaster delivers programmes that matter.

I honestly believe that TV generally is obsessed with the ratings battle to the point of cutting its own throat.

The BBC produces wonderful programmes; it also produces a load of old rubbish.

It's absolutely fine to think of new ways of doing things, and I'm not just asking for the traditional reporter to look into our living rooms night after night.

I had no expectation that the Prince would offer me the unprecedented and unfettered access to the original and entirely untapped sources on which this biography is based.

I ought to rejoice in the fact that our principal rival has died, but I don't.

I was disappointed not to be able to interview Mr. Clinton. I met him two years ago. I was looking forward to talking with him about issues from Africa to terrorism.

Programme names have been changed, and we have Andrew Neil saying he won't be using long words.

The long, forensic interview really matters.

I fail to understand how you can justify a poll tax on the entire population, yet exclude a significant proportion of that population from programmes that this tax is paying for.

The moment seemed right to me for a full and, if possible, authoritative portrait of the life and character of the Prince of Wales.

Over the last two years, I have been able to comb through The Prince's archives. I have been free to read his journals, diaries and many thousands of the letters.

While I have corrected agreed factual errors, I have not been inhibited from writing what I felt to be the truth about The Prince of Wales.

I deplore the loss of arts on BBC One and Two.

You have to be damn certain you're putting something better in its place.

Not every programme dealing with issues of global significance has to be fronted by last week's winner of Have I Got News For You-but I suppose you might be wrong.

I'm not certain that the BBC can claim to be making a wide enough range of distinctive programmes to make the case convincingly.

The challenge is the culture. You have to have a vision for the BBC-it can't merely be that it's big and has a place in the market.

The BBC has the obligation to think big. And at the moment, that clarion call sounds an uncertain note to me.

At home in Devon, my wife Jessica does a huge proportion of the cooking - I do the basics. My timing is extremely good, particularly when it comes to vegetables, perhaps because in my work, timing is everything. I know exactly what fits into a minute when broadcasting, and I apply the same to carrots.

Food is about communal togetherness. Our family does sit at the table. I think it's a great tragedy if a family doesn't have a table, as there is such an atmosphere of good will and warmth when we have eight people sitting around it.

Food is important to me, but I wouldn't say that I'm a gourmet. I don't like tricksy food.

I have a great deal of joy in my life, and I'm very fortunate. That combination makes you aware of just how wonderful life can be on the one hand and how dreadful it can be for people on the other. You can't be happy in isolation.

I have to grit my teeth sometimes, knowing I am going to be written about. But I think it is my life, and I don't want to get people interested in debating it. But I do feel that if you are going to put yourself about as a public person on a television screen, there's a curiosity.

My two great treats in life are baked beans and vanilla ice-cream.

Travelling to make television programmes means I have some unusual food memories. In Pasto, Colombia, I was taken to a restaurant where I chose my meat for the evening from a cage of white rats. It tasted perfectly good - like rabbit.

We've had it very clear to the Bosnians that our obligation to equip and train their forces is completely conditional on the foreign forces being gone.

I know I have the mental capacity of a thousand bloggers, but because of that, my obligation to serve God is also that of a thousand bloggers.

Where we have been incorrect in what we have done, then I think we have an obligation to settle.

Basketball is in my blood. It is my obligation to try.

Honest pioneer work in the field of science has always been, and will continue to be, life's pilot. On all sides, life is surrounded by hostility. This puts us under an obligation.

The Declaration of Independence says when government fails, the people have the right to replace it. Well, New York State government has failed and the people have the right, indeed the people have the the people have the obligation, to act.

We not only have a legal obligation to honor our commitments, we have a moral obligation to provide the coverage we promised to provide to these people.

It is an eternal obligation toward the human being not to let him suffer from hunger when one has a chance of coming to his assistance.

When we ask American men and women in uniform to fight for this country and to defend this country's interest and then to send them overseas, there is no question we have an obligation to protect them and provide for their safety.

December 25th has become guilt and obligation.

So I think we have an obligation with our size to make sure that we are open to what people have to say to us because the people who criticize us, they're not all mean-spirited.

Resistance is feasible even for those who are not heroes by nature, and it is an obligation, I believe, for those who fear the consequences and detest the reality of the attempt to impose American hegemony.

We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible.

The Chancellor also in effect asks us to bargain away whatever obligation or interest we have as regards the neutrality of Belgium. We could not entertain that bargain either.

It has been, after all, 11 years, more than a decade now, of defiance of U.N. resolutions by Saddam Hussein. Every obligation that he signed onto after the Gulf War, so that he would not be a threat to peace and security, he has ignored and flaunted.

We as a Congress have a moral obligation to bring justice to the families of these victims. Furthermore, as a society based on laws, we have a responsibility to ensure that criminals don't go unpunished.

Our ideals, laws and customs should be based on the proposition that each generation in turn becomes the custodian rather than the absolute owner of our resources - and each generation has the obligation to pass this inheritance on in the future.

One of the problems with even suggesting that purpose of a Federal law is for law enforcement officers to assist in protecting the public outside their jurisdictions is that it may give them encouragement or even a sense of obligation to do so.

As my dad said, you have an obligation to leave the world better than how you found it. And he also reminded us to be givers in this life, and not takers.

The nation's obligation to her defenders is as old as that defense itself.

Russia under President Putin is less democratic and less free today than when he assumed office. If Russia cannot fulfill its obligation to the G-8 and maintain a high standard of democratic governance then its membership should be suspended.

If a policy is wrongheaded, feckless and corrupt, I take it personally and consider it a moral obligation to sound off and not shut up until it's fixed.