Engineering stimulates the mind. Kids get bored easily. They have got to get out and get their hands dirty: make things, dismantle things, fix things. When the schools can offer that, you'll have an engineer for life.

I enjoy making solo albums because over the years it's evolved into more of a genuine personal expression of story-telling and day dreams, and I work in a way that has more control.

I've been to the Reading festival twice before-as a punter, though I stayed backstage in the hospitality tent!

Nothing lasts forever but the certainty of change

Anybody auditions for X-Factor it's because they want to be famous, not because they are artists.

In my teenage years I was put off the idea of a career in flying, because I'd convinced myself that you had to be a boffin with degrees in maths and physics, which were my weakest subjects.

The celebrity thing, I mean, Lindsay Lohan - what's she for? I look at that and throw my hands up in despair.