We have heard projects with some of the writers, who we've been in business with for a long time at the studio, that we've heard as a studio - often, pitches that are still in their formation stage where we or the writers have wanted our input on developing them. We've probably heard more pitches with the network hat on. Certainly all of the outside pitches are that way, and many of the pitches that have been in great shape coming out of the studio we've heard from a network perspective.

If I thought that any of this was pre ordained, then it takes away any kind of incentive to struggle, or to put up with things, to reach for those impossible dreams, all those dramatic things.

I'd been a Bowie fan before punk and used to get no end of trouble. I was always getting knocked about and having to run up the street, getting chased by people. It was horrible.

I've got Asperger's syndrome and I'm not a very good people person, so I've always been more comfortable around machinery. Not in a weird way - I don't want to marry my car or anything stupid like that!

Maybe I over-do the 'not-80s' thing. It should be a part of my life that I've got some sort of pride in, but I've got this huge chip on my shoulder about '80s nostalgia - and it annoys fans sometimes.

It seems no matter what you say and how politically correctly and carefully you say it, you offend someone. Or at least I always do.

I genuinely don't know how many albums I'm going to sell when the new album comes out, because I honestly don't know how many fans I've actually got at the moment.