I have intentions as a writer, but people - when they're listening to a track - will take from it what they interpret.

I split it up into working on the two narrative pieces that can tell a story. The scariest thing was whether I'd be any good performing live again. It was such a long time since I'd done any live work. It's so different for me than recording. Every night my audiences were what I would dream of. You could just feel their support.

I just try to put myself in the sense of being a character, sometimes male. I suppose I just like the idea of trying to be different people coming from all kinds of different angles. Most of it was just from my imagination.

What made it special made it dangerous, so I bury it... and forget.

I had friends but I was spending a great deal of my time alone and for me that was vital because there's an awful lot you learn about yourself when you're alone.

I just could not stand the idea of eating meat - I really do think that it has made me calmer.... People's general awareness is getting much better, even down to buying a pint of milk: the fact that the calves are actually killed so that the milk doesn't go to them but to us cannot really be right, and if you have seen a cow in a state of extreme distress because it cannot understand why its calf isn't by, it can make you think a lot.

But I don't have a very good track record with royalty. My dress fell off in front of Prince Charles at the Prince's Trust, so I'm just living up to my reputation.