I've been a minor celebrity since I was 23 years old.

This is Manchester, we do things differently here.

I’ll just say one word: Icarus. If you get it, great. If you don’t, that’s fine too. But you should probably read more.

Most of all, I love Manchester. The crumbling warehouses, the railway arches, the cheap abundant drugs. That's what did it in the end. Not the money, not the music, not even the guns. That is my heroic flaw: my excess of civic pride.

The special relationship between the region and a regional celebrity means that people feel that they have a special investment in you.

If you live in Birmingham, then being awake is not necessarily a desirable state.

Nothing useless can be truly beautiful.