Tony Robinson

“A lot of us saw Blackadder in terms of problem-solving - 'Did that work in that episode?' and so on. We were very picky.”

“If you were going to protect Buckingham Palace, you wouldn't put a tunnel in halfway down the Mall. If you wanted to protected Wembley Stadium, you wouldn't put a tunnel halfway up Wembley Way.”

“I am terrified of being pushed out of a plane at 10,000ft with my hands tied behind my back.”

“I don't know much, but nor do I have the intellectual straitjacket that a lot of people inevitably pick up at university.”

“My job in many ways has been to navigate interesting routes around subjects people think are dull.”

“Fifty one per cent of 'Time Team' viewers are not of my gender. And that surprised me, because I thought it'd be at least 60 per cent male.”

“The work that I do doesn't make me feel uptight, It energises me.”

“I believe that any politician has to be constantly challenged. It is very easy for the rest of us to seduced into thinking they're smarter than us, or that they are privy to more information.”

“Politicians have been downplaying the importance of history as a subject in our schools but, if they had bothered to have a better grasp of history themselves, they might have avoided costly wars. Instead they act like children. The only time that they think matters is their own.”

“Time Team' is by definition very static. Once you're in that field and you've dug your trenches, that's it.”

“Ancient barrows get cleared away. Legislation is pretty much 19th century. Global warming means there is an awful lot of erosion, exposing new archaeology, there is not the funding around to deal with it.”

“Both my parents developed dementia in their old age. Everyone I know whose parents had dementia feel that they didn't deal with it very well.”

“My parents taught me practical things, about how important hard work, discipline and the necessity of managing your own money were. Their values were very much the values of the postwar middle class.”

“For a long time, the paranormal was a legitimate area of explanation for quite a lot of people.”

“I've never really seen archaeology as being any different from history. What I love are the stories of human beings that were around 1,000 years ago and how they lived - archaeology is another aspect to that.”

“Intellectual and emotional curiosity is what I hope I've taught my children.”

“I can't see much purpose in archaeology unless you can find out the narrative about that place, or even realise that nobody actually knows what the narrative was.”

“I love the Pembroke coastal path. Whenever I've been there, it's been sunny, but slightly bracing. So you're happy to keep walking, but you'll get a bit of a tan. The wildflowers and the insects are great and you'll occasionally see a small mammal.”

“I was an only child. Both my parents came from working-class families in Hackney, east London.”

“A naughty part of me thinks, how come Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry and Tim McInnerny have all done really good parts in a film, whereas I've only ever done bits and bobs? Before I die, wouldn't it be nice to be the scheming old man in a movie?”