Even after prison, Archer friends continue to come for Shepherds pie and Champagne.

Question: What role has friendship played in your life?

Jeffrey Archer: Well in my case, of course, if you have been to prison you wonder how many people will stand by you when you come out and the answer is that my Champaign and shepherds pie pot, that I hold each year, at which 200 are invited on each night, we lost eight people out of 400. Eight people out of 400. And the British people have been very responsive and very fair.

I was on a podcast thing the other day, where I was answering questions on emails and we had 57 questions to answer and 55 where kind, one was not so good, and one was bad. But that is very much the British people’s attitude. They are very generous raised, and to be fair, I found the Americans the same way.

Recorded on: March 15, 2008.