You have to make the effort with children. You can't have them thinking that I reckon I'm special, otherwise they'll start thinking they're special. I want them to feel normal for as long as possible because God knows they'll reach an age when they'll be told they're not.

You've got to be strong enough for love. It's very easy to be cool and cynical. It's very difficult to just let yourself go and be in love. You've got to be strong enough for that.

You can't put a load of rockstars up on a stage and expect to wipe out global poverty. That's ludicrous.

The scumbags are taking over the streets. I don't know what David Cameron and Gordon Brown are going to do about it. It all goes back to the Thatcher (Margaret Thatcher) years. It sounds like a cliché but that's when the rot set in.

For the record, I Iike Jay-Z. That's my opinion.

I don't live to work; I work to live.

I go into Daunt Books in Marylebone every couple of weeks. My wife Sara demolishes books, but I only buy stuff occasionally. I like boys' things, spies and the Cold War.