Disappearing act? That's a magic trick, isn't it? I like magic tricks!

The more I think about sex, the better it gets. Here we have a purpose in life, good for the blood circulation, good for releasing the tension.

I think as a mature artist, you're probably always trying to undo the compromises of one's self [in general]. It's not necessarily to do with youth.

I'd become very involved in the production, so the albums were taking longer. So it was never a deliberate decision not to do live shows. A few times, I've thought about doing them again, but it's just kind of never happened. I've just sort of gone the path of becoming a recording artist I guess.

Nobody really knows, do they? They told Stephen Hawking he only had a year left to live and how many years ago was that? You can't know it all.

The thing with 50 Words of Snow is that it was literally back-to-back from Director's Cut [also released in 2011]. It was more or less that I got to make two albums in one hit. I was already in this space in my mind to be writing and making an album.

I love words, I think they're fascinating and incredibly wonderful things and part of the joy of my work is that I not only get to work with music but also with words. Sometimes it's a difficult process but a lot of the time it's really fun.