My wife thinks I'm a narcissist, but I just think it's hilarious going on YouTube and seeing these covers. There are so many of them - literally hundreds! It's flattering.
When West End Girls came out on import, I was a student at Liverpool University. I'd go to a club in Liverpool and it would come on, and I'd be really embarrassed.
Well the way I ended up with my own record is that I did this concert at Wesleyan University. It was just one night and we had no thought of making a record.
I write for myself, and I write for my friends and people who I have a connection with. I try to give some dignity to peoples' lifestyles that tend to be ignored.
Sometimes I feel like I finish a song, and there's another song that I have to write in response to that song. Each is like its own separate feeling, its own separate universe.
It doesn't serve an American interest. It really doesn't really serve Israeli interests - it serves the interests of the political party that's getting the votes of the settlers on the West Bank.
I'm pretty boring with pizza toppings. I only ever eat margherita. If it's ever anything else then I'll just go 'mmm', pretend to eat it, then throw it in the bin.
When I was 13, I remember crying on my mum's shoulder when my first girlfriend dumped me via MSN Messenger. That was cold.
I'm not hard on myself - I brush those things off - but there are days when I'm pleased with myself, and days when I think I have elf ears.
I think a guy who's had just the right amount of booze can sing the blues a hell of a lot better than a guy who is stone sober.
There's something about doing theatre in London - it sinks a little bit deeper into your soul as an actor. It's something about the tradition of theatre, about performing on the West End stage.
Christians and non-Christian voters alike have become far too comfortable slinging rocks at the expense of making any real political or social progress.
A song is only as strong as its foundation, and when it comes so naturally in any setting, those are the songs that will hopefully outlive you, maybe even outlive the next generation of You.
You can look at the West Bank. Cities are like prisons. They can be closed quickly by the Israeli forces, and everything stops in these cities. This is the result of Oslo.
The peaceful splendour of the night healed again. The moon was now past the meridian and travelling down the west. It was at its full, and very bright, riding through the empty blue sky.
I do actually have a connection with James Herriot because we went to school in the same area. I went to Hillhead Primary School in the West End of Glasgow and he went to Hillhead Secondary.
Television has shied away from being too dark, because so much has happened to us recently here in the West, and people are sort of wanting to see more uplifting sorts of things.
Are we Pakistanis, children of a lesser God? Is there one law for the west and one for us? Is our democracy supposed to be only democracy if you give us a no objection certificate?
What I find interesting as a 40-year-old is the idea of trying to be a part of a pronounced, continuing independent culture. The basic tenet of America is that you rebel and then you get real.
When children start to speak they find their own voice by imitating the sounds around them. It would follow that bands do the same. Bands will find their own voice at some point.
When punk began to be a genre, people were going to go out and try to mine it. Some of the better groups, like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, were very artificial.
