Opinions / How rich is rich?

MARTIN AMIS, writer: I guess rich is having freedom from money itself. Well, Grey Gowrie defined the minimum wage, didn't he, years ago, when he resigned from the Arts Council saying he couldn't live on pounds 35,000 a year.

SARAH DOUKAS, Kate Moss's agent: pounds 60,000 isn't rich, well, not if you have two kids and a mortgage and you want to send them to private school. Is it worth being rich? No, it's not]

IVAN MASSOW, financial advisor: Rich is when you can live off the interest of the interest of your capital. To live comfortably, you'd need about pounds 150,000 a year. So you'd be rich if pounds 150,000 is the interest on your interest.

EMMA HINDLEY, independent television director: pounds 25,000 is well off and pounds 30,000 is rich. And if you're a single person, you're better off than most anyway.

STEVE HALE, treasurer, National Union of Students: With the grant under pounds 2,000 a year, students know exactly what is not rich. I think anything over pounds 15,000 is rich.

TUTU, performance artist: It would have to be a lot - how much does the Queen earn? That's rich.

QUENTIN CRISP, actor: Everything is rich to me, I have nothing. I don't understand money. I'm happy as I am. If I had money I would be full of anxiety.

IAN RATTRAY, cinema programmer: If I was earning pounds 150,000 I would consider myself rich.

RICHARD PLATTS, Lloyds Name: I think pounds 50,000 would be a rich person's salary. I've never had an income approaching pounds 60,000 or even half of that, yet before I lost everything I considered myself to be relatively well off. Now, at 60, I've nothing except for my pounds 12,000 pension and I've just received a bill from Lloyds debt collectors demanding pounds 800,000.

DAVID WILLIAMSON, co- editor of Debrett's Peerage: Probably something like pounds 40,000 a year. It's all relative. People tend to confuse wealth and class, but as far as the aristocracy go some are very rich and some are penniless. I live in the past. I tend to think of things as being as they were when I was young.

SERGE LIPSKI, furrier: Living comfortably in London I think I'd have to earn pounds 200,000 to pounds 250,000 in order to be rich. pounds 60,000 isn't rich. I wouldn't mind earning a salary like that but I don't think it's an exceptionally big sum.

HANNAH MOSELEY, unemployed: At the moment anyone who earns more than pounds 7 an hour is rich. I consider really rich to be anyone who can do whatever they want to do and doesn't need to think about it.

CHRIS HIGGINS, pest controller: pounds 200,000 per year is rich. I used to earn pounds 100,000 per year in computers but I left because the pressure was too much. Now I'm lucky if I earn pounds 40,000, but I'm happier.

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