I enjoy the freedom of living alone and not having anyone interfere with my belongings. I mean, I'm quite a selfish human being. I think being in the public eye and growing up, it's made me quite selfish in some respects. I can be extremely generous with friends, but in relationships I can be quite mean in terms of my time and my affections. I take people for granted, and I'm trying not to do that.

I suppose there is a lot of toughness in me.

A lot of Donna Summer and things that maybe weren't trendy anymore or weren't hip in gay clubs but you'd hear them at Taboo.

Certainly for me, when punk exploded in the 1970s, it was just great. We had these wonderful clothes to wear. We could do great things with our hair. We had protest badges that read "I belong to the Blank Generation." It was such a great time to be a kid.

In fact, he [George Michael] was loitering in public loos like some pre-war homosexual. It's one thing to keep quiet. It's another to pretend you're someone you're not.

I don't know whether when I was 20 years old or 25 years old if somebody would have come along with incredible wisdom whether I would have really listened.

I'd got very successful, everyone knew who I was, but I felt very empty.