We have to accept that capitalism is coming to an end. We can't provide paid employment for people, all the industries with technology are counter-intuitive to profit, and we have to have a transition to the conceptualist society. The only way to do it fairly is as a social democracy, a radical social democracy, which isn't compromised by neo-liberalism and isn't compromised by the rich, and isn't compromised by hegemonic, authoritarian interests: to have that balance between the government, the private sector, and then the individual citizens again.

Bowie's death is a very emotional thing. My generation of working-class Britain, it feels like we lost our spiritual leader, our guru. I always thought that if I was to be a hundred, somehow Bowie would be a hundred and fifteen. He'd be there to still steer me and guide me.

I was in Athens for a football match when 9/11 went down, and it was quite spectacular - we went into this bar and tried to find out what happened, and the bartender said "it's only the American and the Arabs. They're not big football nations." So the feeling was, what's it got to do with us? Why are football games being cancelled in Europe? The intelligentsia in the West feel like they have to figure out the significance of it all, whereas people have other pressing concerns, related to basic needs.

I spend so much time on the screen when I am writing, the last thing you want to do is spend more time on the Internet looking at a screen. That's what I hate about all this technology.

I'm not really interested in courting controversy, but I am interested in exploring issues that other people would deem to be controversial.

You know, people tend to get stereotyped for about forty percent of their behavior, so if you're completely crazy forty percent of the time you'll get stereotyped as crazy, even if you're totally boring thirty percent of the time and just studious the other thirty percent of the time.

You have to let people express themselves in the way that they need to express themselves. You have to express yourself in any way possible, provided you're prepared to live with the consequences.