We're also trying to reconcile positions on different issues such as aid and trade. As the largest provider of development aid to the Third World, and the largest trading partner for developing countries, we feel the EU is quite well-placed to play a bridging role.

We have taken the leadership role we promised last year. This is by pushing for concrete targets and timetables.

I think the deployment strategy we have right now for our ambulances isn't the optimum model. The current system we have is a very good one, but with the status quo there is a problem in the outlying areas. If you have a critical emergency in some spots in the county you could be waiting a long time and in some cases, that could be too long.

It doesn't mean, I think, so much that the workshop generates the writer as that writers are increasingly drawn to them as a kind of apprenticeship period, a place where they can spend a couple of years improving their skills.

Increasingly, the best writers are writers who have been in one.