I was about 16 when punk started to happen... It felt like you had this naive idea that you could change things just by wearing something.

I was really good friends with Matthew Ashman, the guitarist in Bow Wow Wow. He died, unfortunately. He was one of my best friends during my sort of punk period.

The ultimate goal is to be more satisfied. I really don't believe you get wiser because you get older. It's a choice, perhaps not to take some things so seriously

Every freak has a mother. When I met Marilyn Manson I was struck by how nice he was. People are rarely as weird as you anticipate. Except for Courtney Love-who reminded me of that mad snake in The Jungle Book.

When Culture Club broke up, I hadn't been going out a lot because we'd been working all the time, so I suddenly had this period of leisure. And it was just around the time that the whole acid house thing kicked off in London.

The world is less homophobic, depending on where you are in the world... As a gay man I feel very strongly about those issues around the world - there've been huge changes and developments, but there are still places where things are scary.

Don't talk about things you don't like. Talk about music that you love, books that you've read. I put a lot of recipes online.