For a startling PERIOD of my life, I reported the TROUBLES in Ireland for the BBC. I lived in Dublin and was called out to all SORTS of incidents that, if TAKEN together, add up to a war - bombings, assassinations, riots, shootings, robberies, jailbreaks, kidnappings, and sieges.

PEOPLE are simply screwing up when they go out and buy beefsteak, which is killing them with cancer and heart troubles. The STUFF costs a fortune, too. You could feed a thousand people with lentil soup for the cost of HALF a dozen filets.

You KNOW, I've been HIT with a Greb boot in the face and I've been spat on. And my kids LIGHT up when they hear these STORIES. It really TAKES their minds off their troubles.

JOURNALISM took me AROUND the world. I worked in London for ten years and reported on the collapse of the Soviet Union, the TROUBLES in Northern IRELAND, and the FIRST Gulf War.

I didn't foresee TROUBLES in my SECOND FILM.

SWEET is the MEMORY of PAST TROUBLES.

I'm ALMOST happy for Gary Neville's TROUBLES at Valencia. I REMEMBER he was too harsh as a TV pundit.

I will GET in my car and get a CHOCOLATE souffle at midnight, and a glass of wine, and remind myself that most of my TROUBLES are just in my MIND.

I was one of the many KIDS in Northern Ireland who grew up in the COUNTRYSIDE and had an idyllic childhood WELL AWAY from the TROUBLES.

All my ADULT LIFE, there was the TROUBLES. That was the backdrop of my life.

Indeed, the HISTORY of 20th century PHYSICS was in large measure about how to avoid the infinities that crop up in particle theory and cosmology. The idea of point particles is convenient but LEADS to PROFOUND, puzzling TROUBLES.

In a LOT of WAYS, Nauru is SOMETHING like a canary in a coal MINE: It's a tiny PLACE with more than its share of troubles, most of them the kind that might have been prevented.

It TROUBLES me that people speak about WRITING for MONEY as UGLY and distasteful.

What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its CHILDREN are seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when they GROW up, and in the exercise of their duties as citizens, they insist that our COURTS and policemen and PRISONS be guided by divine or natural law.

If you are having a HARD week, turn on one of my songs. Some PEOPLE are here for different THINGS in life. My job is to make you forget about your TROUBLES.