The sense of one's past is so strong and forms our sense of self so strongly, it will always fascinate, elude and confuse me.

One of the most unsettling things about 'Monologue' is its long silences, in which the man sits alone, staring into the middle distance, without grip of his narrative, lost to the past.

The past is open to all sorts of magical possibilities because it can't be verified. It's as we make it, so it seems to be entirely free. It seems to be completely up for grabs. But of course it's not.

Down on the ground, we seem to do anything but make lengthy, robust monologues. We can communicate in an instant almost anywhere. Gone is the slow old letter - itself a monologue, a sort of considered performance of best self - and in its place is the e-mail, the text, the SMS, the tweet.

I love Aerosmith. I love Guns N' Roses, AC/DC, anything from that era, Led Zeppelin. So my guitar style is very much like Slash or Jimmy Page. I love playing that kind of music. It's where my heart's at.

I have always loved the process of making the music, reading the letters from the fans who get married to my music, have children to my music and play my music at their funerals.

Do the bishops seriously imagine that legalising gay marriage will result in thousands of parties to heterosexual marriages suddenly deciding to get divorced so they can marry a person of the same sex?

Even though people may be well known, they hold in their hearts the emotions of a simple person for the moments that are the most important of those we know on earth: birth, marriage and death.