You should make an effort on stage because it's a performance. The stage should be glittery and camp, but I don't go down the shops in full stage gear.

I'm a sucker for good black skirts and pretty little shirts and kooky tops. I have to admit that shopping satisfies my craving for immediate gratification.

The X Factor' is great entertainment, but it doesn't prepare people for getting chewed up and spat out by the music industry.

Philately is normally a boys' hobby but for some reason it was in vogue at my junior school. Between the ages of eight and ten I collected avidly. I'd pore over my Stanley Gibbons book, obsessively checking my collection's value. I always hoped I'd stumble across a really valuable one, a Penny Black or an Inverted Jenny, but it wasn't to be.

I don't know why people think I'm polished - I often leave the house with buttons missing and ladders in my tights.

For every person that says I'm the new Audrey Hepburn, someone else says that I look like an alien.

Turning the thermostat down is something that I do pretty reluctantly. I like to be able to walk around in whatever I fancy at home.