· A Women's Institute flower arrangement, a prize-winning cake and a collection of fake turds - all this is displayed by artist Jeremy Deller as evidence of the "creative life of the country".

Talking to the critic Tim Marlow, he said that winning the Turner prize hadn't changed him, much. He said: "You turn down a lot of things. For instance, there's going to be a TV show where lots of celebrities go to art college for two months, and I was asked to be their tutor. Now if Chris Eubank had been doing it it might have been quite interesting. He is an artwork in himself."

· Lord Deedes, former Telegraph editor, soldier and Tory minister, now looking more and more like the aged Methuselah, is an unlikely champion of the NHS. Describing a recent medical incident, he said: "The blessings of the NHS poured in on me. The cushions! You've never seen the like in your life. I slept on a bed filled by electricity with air."

For whom would he vote as Tory leader? "Which of that lot? You floor me. One of the saddest sights is seeing young hopefuls promoted before their time. I dread the choice of someone who looks bright, promising and beautiful, then they run into Gordon Brown - and you get a very nasty mess on the road." He also had a charming habit of addressing his interviewer as "dear boy", the dear boy being Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian.

· Kazuo Ishiguro, a serious fellow who barely cracked a smile during his interview yesterday afternoon, is not a writer one associates with Thalia, the muse of comedy. But this is not how he sees it. "I aspire to write comedy," he said. "The Unconsoled was my attempt at that. Remains of the Day was supposed to be funny, as well. The joke is ... that the narrator has no sense of humour." His most recent book Never Let Me Go has been regarded as rather tragic. "I thought this was my most cheerful book to date," he said.

· "Are there any questions you'd like to ask me about the book, Peter?" asked Michael Kustow, addressing the veteran director Peter Brook, whose biography he has written. "Well I haven't actually read it," answered Brook like a whip lash.