I like experience in my side, but you need a balance and young players give you energy, pace and, often, a freshness which means they have no fear.

Older players who have experienced failure in the past can sometimes be held back by the fear of it happening again, young ones just want to go out and play.

Maybe we have more young English players than people sometimes think. They just need a chance to show their ability.

The sack is a sad fact of life for football managers. I have been axed three times. The chairman at Notts County was on record as saying it's the worst thing they ever did. Within a couple of years they were one game from losing league status.

When I joined QPR in March 2010 we were rock bottom and heading for League One. We conceded too many and didn't score enough, which was a recipe for relegation.

On the plus side, leaving Leeds meant I have been able to spend a lot of time with the family, enjoying a very rare summer off and my first Christmas without work worries since I was a teenager. I was also able to accept an offer to work with BT Sport.

I am finding I have to watch what I am doing otherwise I may as well be in full-time football again and, while I'm available if something interesting comes up to take me to the end of the season, I don't want a long-term commitment at this stage in my life.

Older readers will remember there used to be matches on Christmas Day. I remember leaving the fireside and the presents to watch matches on the day as a boy but such matches were rare by the time I began playing.

I've been fortunate most of the seven promotions I've won have been with sides I built from zero, so it is doubly rewarding. There is nothing to match being in the dressing room celebrating promotion after a long season with a group of lads you have put together.

For a lot of young managers, especially those who have not played at the top end of the game, there is also a financial need to work. Some of them could find employment in another field, but you can't beat making a living out of something you really enjoy doing.

You need good staff with their own opinions - Mick Jones has been a great No 2 as he's not a yes-man - but at the end of the day the buck stops with you and the good managers are the ones who make more good decisions than bad.

I can't say I ever got to the stage of swapping phone numbers with refs, but I don't have a problem with managers and referees communicating.

I have spoken to refs after games, just to ask about something that had occurred during a game. It's always been off the record and I've never had a ref not answer.

I don't think it is wrong to have a bit of banter with refs. My Dad would always manage games by talking to players and so did I when I reffed.

Football is a relatively small industry and there are times, while you want to be honest, that it is best to pull a few punches. You never know, you might need to work with that person again.

At Plymouth I wrote 'Neil Warnock's Wembley Way', a one-year diary, to show people what being a manager was like. I got lucky as the year ended with us winning promotion through the play-offs at Wembley.

As for myself, you never know what is round the corner in football.

After more than 30 years in the dugout I have come to realise there is a need at many clubs for someone who can act as a link between managers and owners.

However successful someone is in their field of business, and however well-meaning and hard-working, it is difficult to come into football and immediately work out how the industry works, who to trust, what to do. That is the sort of role I think I can fill.

Not that I am saying I will never manage again. I want to spend more time with my family and, since we live in Cornwall, that rules out most long-term options.

If necessity is the mother of invention, urgency is the uncle of change. Without it, progress slows and then stops and then reverses.

Sometimes, not knowing what you're doing allows you to do things you never knew you could do.

Constant exercise can keep the body trim and taut, but the face is another thing.

Given the long history of global anti-Semitism and continued calls for the destruction of Israel, it's tough to be a Jew.

I've worked on over twenty TV staffs, and nine out of ten male colleagues are wonderful, inclusive, and professional. Still, there's usually one guy - the Tenth Man - who turns a fun job into a dental appointment.

I learned not to get too happy about good news or too distraught about bad.

Once, after a long week, I felt so insecure that I decided to make a list of people who thought I was funny even if I didn't think I was. At the top of the list, I wrote, 'Garry Shandling.' His early praise protected me like a comedy-writer version of Harry Potter's scar.

I loved working on 'Murphy Brown,' and I loved working on 'Monk.'

Sensitivity training is a fine idea but isn't taken seriously by those who need it most.

I'm such an admirer of Wendy Davis.

Broad City's first season is full of moments that are insane... and yet make total sense.

For me, TV had always been a medium for entertainment.

One of the greatest benefits to come out of 'Lean In' was convincing women to help and support other women - not out of this sense of duty and that you'd be condemned to hell forever if you didn't, but because it will make all your lives better.

One of the most rebellious things a woman can do is allow people to think she's mean.

There have been many great newspapermen, but to my mind, only two have achieved immortality: Pulitzer for his endowment and William Randolph Hearst for his castle.

You don't have to let a bad experience stop you from doing what you want to do.

When I write, I feel like an optometrist, constantly flipping between lenses and asking, 'Is this better? Is this?' Slowly, the work comes into focus.

At 26, I was single, living in Manhattan, and working as a journalist at 'Vanity Fair.' I was Carrie Bradshaw... in sensible shoes.

Early on in my career, I was often the only woman in the room, writing for shows like 'Late Night with David Letterman,' 'The Simpsons,' 'Newhart,' and 'Coach,' and sometimes I'd feel like I didn't belong.

Feminists cried, 'Sexism!' when New York Senator Hillary Clinton was judged not by the content of her character but by the color of her pantsuits.

Male writers don't want to be judged in the room. They want to be able to scarf an entire bag of potato chips while cracking fart jokes and making lewd comments without fear of feminine disapproval. But we're your co-workers, not your wives.

There have always been women who were successful against the odds. Now we need to change the odds so more women can be successful.

I think it's an uphill battle in every field. You hear late-night comedy is hard on women. And then you hear investment banking is hard on women. And tech is hard on women. And then you start digging, and you learn philosophy departments are hard on women!

My criticisms of late-night TV blew up some old friendships and sparked some new ones.

In her darkest hours, Diana, Princess of Wales, could have used a friend like Empress Elisabeth of Austria. The two lived similar lives, a century apart.

In March 2010, I attended an art opening for Kimberly Brooks's show 'The Stylist Project' in Los Angeles. It was a starry celebration hosted by Dior and 'Vanity Fair' to benefit P.S. Arts. But even as fun-to-gape-at actresses like Christina Hendricks arrived, I couldn't take my eyes off the oil portraits.

When blue-eyed Donald Trump married hazel-eyed Ivana Zelnickova, he probably figured his broad-shouldered DNA would dominate her girly alleles. But genetics played a cruel trick on Trump: Of the couple's three children, only the youngest, Eric, wound up with his father's fishy blue eyes.

I think I'm funnier in my writing than in person.

Like leggings, comedies created by women came into vogue in the late 1980s, exploded in the early '90s, went mainstream in the mid-'90s, and were shoved into the back of the closet around 1997.

I have a husband who didn't just resign himself to staying home but was happy to be the primary parent.