People have speculated about my sexuality for years and years. They are obviously interested in my sex life. Fine. Let them speculate. I'm not going to put them right one way or the other.

[Music From the Edge of Heaven] wasn't really an album at all. The band had made the decision to release an LP and then split up. We wanted to go out with a bang in Britain and the rest of the world by having a single that was four songs, not just one song. But we couldn't do that over here because we couldn't release a single without an album.

I hope it really comes off. It would make my dad really proud." (about the song for the coming 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Greece)

I think part of it has got to be compensation, yes, for the fact that when I was a kid, I wasn't particularly attractive. But at the same time I don't remember ever thinking, Oh, my God, I'm such a mess; I'm the ugliest sod in the class.

I was supposed to be a real Thatcherite. Just by dint of being a first-generation immigrant and having not had money, and then suddenly having it - and getting on planes and going to Ibiza and sitting around in thongs. But actually nothing I was writing or doing was even vaguely Thatcherite.

I want the people who came to listen to have a good time as well. So it's a matter of playing a control game when all I really want to do is go out there and sing.

I have to believe that somebody up there thinks I've still got some work to do.