The thing I care about is my weight - I'm as fanatical about it as a member of Girls Aloud. I weigh myself every morning. I know exactly what I want to be - 82kg - and I try to stick to it.

When you are a journalist in the music business, as I was, you end up dying or going to the gym - I chose the gym.

You have to give kids from ordinary families a ladder. You have to show them there's a way out.

My parents have been dead for many years, and when your folks are gone there is nobody standing between you and eternity.

Tattoos are so widespread, so ugly and so very, very permanent. You can, in theory, have them removed - but a large chunk of your living flesh will go with it.

Largely this is a class thing - writers tend to be cosseted little middle-class kiddies who think that the world owes them a royalty cheque. But just doing it - being in your room for years on end, locked in your head, alone with invented ghosts - it weakens and softens the body. And I know I can't just live in my head.

It can't always be a honeymoon