I hate albums that are really happy. When I am really happy, I don't like to hear happy albums, and when I am really sad I don't wanna hear happy albums... and I tend to gravitate towards the lonely and isolated anyway when I write.

I think Lindsay Kemp really introduced me to the work of Jean Genet, and through that, I kind of kept re-educating myself about other prose writers and poets.

Some of us, I think, us small, pompous arty ones probably read too much George Steiner and kind of got the idea that we were entering to this kind of post-culture age and that we'd better do something postmodernist - quickly, before somebody else did.

My son's full real name is Duncan Zowie Haywood. As a toddler he was called by his second name Zowie. But it was such an identifiable name during the Seventies that if I called him loudly in public places, everyone would turn to stare, so I started calling him Joey to take the pressure off. It has the same sound and number of syllables as Zowie. And Joe stuck for most of his childhood. Now he has reverted to his real name, Duncan. Haywood was my father's name.

I think I am a lot more relaxed about what I have or haven't done.

You've got your mother in a whirl, she's not sure if your a boy or a girl.

I went through all the musicians in my life who I admire as bright, intelligent, virtuosic players.