The reason why I'm popular as an artist in this country is because it suits the psyche of the nation at this time. Ten years ago, my work wouldn't have had any currency, any popularity at all. Before in this country, you had to be accepted. You had to be part of the group. Now it's probably more trendy to have a problem.

People try constantly to use me and I hate it.

It pleases me that people can be interactive

I thought it would be my one and only exhibition so I decided to call it My Major Retrospective.

My mum has never wanted me to have children. She thinks I would be destroying my life, even now.

What's in yesterday's newspaper is today's fish-and-chip paper. If it really affects my life so badly, so personally, then I would do something about it. When it's really out of order, or something possibly detrimental to my family, or I'm driven to such a level that I know that this can be picked up and repeated again, I will just write or e-mail the newspaper editor. So, in the next day's newspaper, it might say, "Tracey Emin says this is factually incorrect."

I am fiercely independent and I probably wouldn't be if it wasn't for the way in which I was brought up