I believe that magic is art, and that art, whether that be music, writing, sculpture, or any other form, is literally magic. Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words or images, to achieve changes in consciousness… Indeed to cast a spell is simply to spell, to manipulate words, to change peoples consciousness, and this is why I believe that an artist or writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world to a shaman.

Rather than being able to have a healthy relationship with our own sexual imagination, we're driven into some dark corners by shame and embarrassment and guilt, and those dark corners breed all sorts of monsters.

You see, there's the way things seemed and then there's the way things were and one is so often the total reverse of the other.

You know what I wish? I wish all the scum of the Earth had one throat and I had my hands about it.

This is an IMAGINARY STORY...aren't they all?

I think that in an increasingly virtual world, lovingly produced artefacts are at a premium.

Growing up in the Boroughs, I thought I must be the cleverest boy in the world, an illusion that I was able to maintain until I got to the grammar school.