Russians have a new freedom, but as long as they don't express that freedom on a public platform.

People come from all over the world to see this little place they've seen in movies and read about in history books: Soho.

I can't read music and I'm crap at learning lyrics. Especially since the accident I have memory problems. I can't remember words, names, places.

I was quite naïve, a boy from Southport. When I went to art college in Leeds, I lived in a basement flat, and I heard clunking on the stairs all night, and I thought it was just nurses going to work on the night shift at the local hospital! Then I found out it was all working girls upstairs. I suppose I came from a protected background and had my eyes opened wide by that side of city life.

What was great about the 80s was that you still had record companies who would get behind developing you as an artist. You had these bonkers heads of department and A&R people who, even after a flop album, would let you make another one.

I was very much a mess, as a person. I'd come from a very turbulent teenage life, with parents who had broken up in a very bad way, and a lot of illness at school.

I became the magnet for a lot of scary aggression. Cos it's scary Up North!