I'm ruthlessly disciplined - about everything. To get things done in life you have to be. I hate empty spaces. Hate them. I like my day to be full. I get up at 5.30 and by 6 I'm ready to begin my first writing session of the day. If I'm at our main home, in Cambridge, I work in the folly at the bottom of our garden. My wife, Mary, converted it into offices. She has the downstairs, with all the latest machinery, and I have the beautiful oak-panelled room upstairs.
We have a cat called Oliver, but I don't encourage him to keep me company because he meows the whole bloody time. Right now I'm on the seventh draft of my next book, which is a set of 14 short stories called And Thereby Hangs a Tale - a line from The Taming of the Shrew. I can't type, so everything is handwritten on lined Oxford pads, using a Pilot pen. My secretary, Alison, types up each draft with triple spaces, and I then mark changes with a Staedtler pencil. I wish it were easier but it isn't.
At 8 I stop for breakfast. Mary likes to remind me that we're becoming an obese nation, so I try to eat healthily: cornflakes with fresh fruit on top, preferably kiwi, raspberries and melon, followed by two boiled eggs and a glass of skimmed milk. Over that I'll read The Times and the Telegraph, check e-mails and update my blog. The number of hits I get in a month is incredible - it was over 800,000 in September. It's a great way of talking to readers, not only about my books, but about my other interests, like sport. I'm obsessed with cricket. When it was on over the summer, it felt like the whole of India was talking to me.
Before I start my second two-hour session at 10, I shower, shave and stick on one of my tracksuits, most of which are so worn they're falling apart. I'm no good when it comes to buying clothes. Mary's the same. For our 20th anniversary I took her to Milan and told her to go shopping. She picked out one suit, one scarf and one pair of shoes. I guess she's a very low-maintenance wife. She's also extremely clever. She's chairman of Addenbrooke's, the hospital here in Cambridge, which has 1,200 doctors, 2,500 nurses and a budget of £500m.
At 12 I go for a long walk. I like to keep fit, because I've reached an age where I'm very aware of my own mortality - not only that but friends are starting to die around me. My eldest son, William, said: "Don't worry, Dad, you're going to outlive us all." The only thing he wants me to leave him is a painting in the hallway by Botero. We share a passion for art. I started collecting 40 years ago and I've got about 200 works, mainly impressionist and early English, so one's not a lot to ask. My mother died at 87, so she made it to a great age, God bless her. She was a very driven woman. I think she's where I get all my drive from. I stop for lunch at 1. When I'm staying at our apartment in London I like to go out and meet friends. But fancy dishes and fine wines are beyond me. I like to keep it simple, so I'll maybe have shepherd's pie or spaghetti bolognese. The one thing I can't stand is restaurants that rip you off. If one flunky opens a door and another three show you to your table, you know the bill's already doubled. I like value for money, and I tried to instil that in my sons. James is a banker and William, who's a writer and film-maker, reminded me of this when he asked what I was trying to prove by giving them less school pocket money than anyone else. Mary's worse. She's very careful with money - thank God! You can't get her to travel first class - she won't do it!
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My third and fourth writing sessions are from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8. I hope to finish the 14th and final draft next month, at which point I'll head off to our house in Majorca and start writing chapter one of my next novel. When people ask my advice about what to write about, I say write about what you know. I drew on my experiences as an MP to write First among Equals and of losing a fortune to write Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less. While something of my own humble beginnings inspired Kane and Abel, and my three Prison Diaries, of course, speak for themselves.
Mary gets home about 7ish and we have dinner at 8, which the housekeeper prepares. Again, it's simple and we always have plenty of vegetables. A plate of cabbage with an egg in the middle is my idea of heaven. We're both regular theatre-goers - there's so much amazing stuff on right now. I'm also a big investor in it. I own 50% of Grease all over the world, and about 35% of The Sound of Music. Having lost lots of money over the years, they're very happy investments.
Last thing at night I like to catch the 10 o'clock news and read for half an hour. I've just finished Kevin Phillips's Bad Money, and I'm now in the middle of Simon Schama's Power of Art. Once the light's out I'm asleep within minutes - unless my brain's trying to sort out a nagging plot line. Of course, life has its own dramatic plot lines, and I'm just very lucky to be where I am right now. I've always been a glass-half-full-type person - even three-quarters full. And maybe there's something to be said for that.
A 30th anniversary edition of Kane and Abel (Macmillan) is out now