I do write songs with a political dimension to them sometimes, but I'm always slightly appalled by it when I do.

The good thing about people really is their iffy-ness and dodginess, isnt it?

It's good that I managed to hoodwink so many people. I am actually not that nice a person.

A Conservative government is necessary. There is no credible alternative.

I was kind of reared by television, but the BBC, it still had that thing - and people are always invoking that kind of Reithian idea - where you could learn stuff from it. If you put a kid in front of a telly now to be reared by that you'd just have a jibbering idiot, you know what I mean? Just adverts for a start. It's almost like the programmes are an afterthought, the real business of this channel is to sell you things and we're just going to space out those announcements with some crap to watch.

Part of why I started a band was due to feelings of shyness and social ineptitude. I saw it as some way of being able to interact with people from a safe distance.

Unless you're living on the street and surviving on a diet of discarded turkey drumsticks, there's no point in being gloomy. We've spent too long trying to cheer ourselves up by spending money on brightly coloured things we don't really need. We've stopped using our imaginations.