Fiona Bruce

I don't know anything about antiques. I do buy them now, but I have a little knowledge, and great enthusiasm.

I am a simple soul.

Within less than an hour of arriving in Singapore, it was clear we had arrived in a country where eating has been elevated to the status of a national pastime.

My father was MD of Unilever, so we followed him around the world.

Thailand was a revelation to me; the landscapes, the culture, the food and the people.

Age is definitely an issue for women in TV. There comes a point - especially if you're a woman - when your career just falls off a cliff. I'm not being self-pitying. That's just the way it is.

Antiques Roadshow' was the first job I had taken since my children were born that took me away from them consistently over a period of time. That was a big adjustment for all of us.

I think of myself as a journalist first and foremost.

Family is the priority. Your job never loves you back, that's the way I look at it.

My kids once said, 'What would you do if you hadn't got us?' I replied, 'I'd be more successful and I'd have more friends, but I wouldn't be as happy.'

With two older brothers, I was a tomboy in one sense, but on the other hand I really loved dolls. My brothers weren't very happy when I nicked their Action Men to play with my dolls and they were appalled when I made them kiss my Barbies.

Really, I've been at the BBC too long and have spent too much time out on the road to worry about being judged as a clothes horse.

You don't have doubts when you get offered 'Question Time.' You think, thank you very much.

No matter how beautiful a spot I find myself in, if the food ain't up to much, I won't enjoy myself.

The best thing, on 'Question Time,' is when the reality confronts the rhetoric.

I'm all for a passionate debate, and sometimes things can be heated, which is fine, up to a point. As long as we remember that we are human beings.

I backpacked around Thailand when I was a university student and have wanted to return ever since.

When I started in news on the 'Six O'Clock,' I was 36 and felt very inexperienced.

You can't beat a good millefeuille, which is basically a posh custard slice. Yum!

I collect things called 'samplers' which are Victorian pieces of needlework usually done by children in a workhouse to show that they have a skill which can be used in service, stitching household linen or that kind of thing. I think they're very humble and very beautiful.

I think having a healthy distrust of authority is a good thing, within certain parameters, obviously.

My Duke of Edinburgh interview for his 90th in June 2011 was not one of my successes. I knew what to expect: there were some very uncomfortable moments and put-downs, but I think it made for entertaining viewing.

I was born in Singapore, but I left at four so memories are hazy.

If I were to say anything to my 18-year-old self, it would be, 'Loosen up. Chill out.'

My own valuation moment: When I started 'Antiques Roadshow,' John Benjamin looked at my engagement ring, which is Victorian. I sat there as a visitor would and he dated it, talked me through the stone, which is an opal, and which mine it would have been from.

Antiques Roadshow' is a public service. It reflects the nation back to itself, as does 'Question Time.'

Think Oman, and you think desert. But what we found was mile after mile of barren, spiky rubble, cliffs of jutting sharp rocks, unrelieved by a single piece of vegetation or water. We drove for hours across what felt like the surface of the moon. We saw goats foraging but couldn't work out what they could possibly be eating.

I'd set out to Oman in search of luxury with culture and family-friendly adventure thrown in. And I found it.

Muscat itself is a mixture of impersonal modern buildings, shopping malls, mosques, traditional souks, tarmac and sand.

I don't particularly like being told what to do.

I think it's important to rebel a little bit.

I conquered my phobia of camping, although I doubt I'll be pitching my tent at a muddy festival any time soon.

I've been on camels before, lumbering slowly through the desert - not hugely exciting, but I enjoyed the 'Lawrence of Arabia' vibe.

I still remember watching 'Antiques Roadshow' as a child with my parents, on a Sunday night, sitting in our 1970s living room.

I've chosen not to go to Sky or ITV because the programmes I've made at the BBC, I want to carry on making.

To me it's always been a no-brainer. Maybe I'm just simplistic about it, but if you believe in equality of opportunity, and want to champion equality of opportunity, that makes you a feminist.

Have I ever presented a programme I don't watch? Well, I've done loads of programmes that no one else watched!

The thing is, if you come on the 'Roadshow' we are not going to humiliate you. The thing about the 'Antiques Roadshow' is not to humiliate people.

I'm quite famously frugal.

I wasn't born into money, and you never know when that money's going to stop coming in.

I'm always disappointed by women who say they prefer working with men. What is that all about? I love working with women, I love the company of women.

I'm not tough. I'm just not a retiring violet when it comes to airing my opinions.

Question Time' had been on my fantasy bucket list for some time. Of all the jobs in broadcasting that's the job I knew I wanted to do.

I'm used to doing a lot of live broadcasting.

I'm all about the story. And the stories I remember tend to be the ones of sorrow, or family history, or revelation of the self.

In my twenties, I was virulently opposed to anyone commenting on my appearance, lest it come at the expense of my ability.

If you take over a programme from a longstanding incumbent, not everyone's going to like it.

I had done debate programmes before and quite often you go into them thinking: 'I might need to build some energy in the room.' 'On Question Time,' the reverse is true. A lot of the time, I am just trying to not have it turn into a slanging match.

I haven't done Botox. Although there are a few women on screen who do, and if you don't do it, which I don't, you look pretty rough by comparison.

Most visitors to Iceland tend to spend just a few hours in Reykjavik before moving on to the geological wonders beyond. I think they are missing out.