But live shows are cool. I just got back into the idea of enjoying it live.

I love the magic of the studio.

I had a breakthrough, I think my life just became calmer, I gave up drinking. My priorities changed as I had a young daughter. The group didn't want me to record for the Think Tank album... so I took it as a sign to leave.

You know Manchester is always a bit of a hard place for people coming from London, just with all the history. Manchester has this immensely huge and healthy history musically.

A singer for me is more like someone who is standing alone with a microphone like Scott Walker, rather than someone who is bashing a plank and is spitting all over a microphone.

I sing, but I don't think of myself as a singer.

I'm not going to pretend that I am the best thing in their life and they have to be totally loyal.

It was quite nice meeting up because we went through a lot together and we haven't really seen each much other to communicate one to one for quite a long time.

But those audiences in Spain, they were just so stoned. I don't like playing to audiences like that because they just don't do anything. I'm up here with my band and we're working really hard and they are just stoned.

It's a bit loose and the people in my group have got other groups. They don't have to have a total allegiance to me. I think that's really a bit weird and showing some weird insecurity.

I've always looked at shoes as being immensely beautiful things.

It's mostly Mars Bars and peanuts and cheese and you go to the fridge and there's Red Bull and Beer. It's not like people are holding me down and pouring beer in my face.

Playing and singing at the same time is pretty cool, but sometimes it's difficult to know when you can just really let go a bit because you've got to get back to bloody microphone and sing some stuff.

When Blur first started and we were playing Manchester the Hacienda was the place to go. That was where a lot of exciting stuff was happening and London was pretty dead.

Being a singer now I have to get all fussy... I must have my ginger and lemon and all that.

I suppose my little Martin acoustic guitar is quickly becoming a prize possession. It's a lovely guitar. I bought it at the Cambridge Folk Festival in 2001 before I had cleaned up.

There's a focus that hasn't been there for ages and ages and some American bands are sounding quite English like they did in the late 70s and early 80s.

The other guys drink, but they don't drink anywhere near what I used to. And I think they're slightly respectful of the fact that I'm off it, so it's not a problem.

There were some extremely good teachers there that were great artists really in their own right. It was actually very hard to concentrate on getting down to going any work being an art student especially when it's a flighty thing at best.

I think now, more than anytime I can remember, bands are sounding pretty similar whether they're English or American, from Manchester or London... or Leeds or Welsh or Irish.

Like, Mission Of Burma to me always sounded almost like they were part of the British Arty New Wave. I kind of like that. I like not being able to tell the difference.

I think a lot of cynicism has dropped away from my shoulders since I stopped drinking.

With my daughter, who at the time was one, my domestic life needed to take more precedent and really with my own self I needed to develop quite a bit more. So that put Blur down the list of priorities quite a lot by the time I came to thinking about it.

I'm still amazed by the process of recording.

But live shows are cool. I just got back into the idea of enjoying it live.

Manchester has it's own pride and London has it's sort of pride and sometimes we can be a bit mean to each other, but I think if we dig the music we can get on really well.

I think of someone like Mariah Carey as a singer.

It's the clothes that influence the music I'm going to play.

I liked Germany; I'm not into Berlin, it's too huge and empty and imposing, but Munich was good.

I don't think of myself as a singer really.

I'm a bit of lunatic with shoes and jackets and jeans. It's just how I am.

There are a lot of people who can do it on the guitar and sing at the same time, but I think what is harder is bass players that can play the bass and sing.

It's the faster bands that made me want to play guitar, bands like The Jam.

I'm still trying to discover my position on my own artwork and hopefully at this exhibition someone will come and tell me. I'm open to listening to criticism.

Most of America don't even listen to music probably. They just go raccoon hunting or something.

I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.

After I'd produced about two dozen pen and ink drawings, one evening I decided that they needed poems to accompany them. I still have no idea where that notion came from, but it took me about two hours to produce verses for these creatures.

Yeah, that's what kind of, we get the idea a little bit yeah, because other people from different countries also try as hard as they can to get a medal or a gold medal in the Olympic Games. And you know, if they can work hard, we can work hard as well.

What's fascinating is that when you write a script, it's almost a stream of consciousness. You have an idea that it means something, but you're not always sure what. Then when you get on the set, the actors teach you.

I also do not like the idea of soft money, these issue ads - people don't know where the money is coming from, millions and millions of dollars outside of the control of a candidate - there's no accountability.

From the beginning, the series has been story driven - I began with a story idea - but research feeds it.

Then I decided I couldn't just crawl in the corner and die, so I started putting pen to paper and wrote some songs. I had no idea what for or who I was going to work with. I tried to find my way and direction.

The idea is, if I can't heal from my art, then how can you heal?

There is sometimes a peculiar confusion in the West that equates progress to whatever is recent or whatever is new, and it is time we understood that progress has nothing to do with the chronology of an idea.

The idea of licking stamps seemed great fun for me.

Learn about the world, the way it works, any kind of science and anthropology, it's really an interesting place we live in. Evolution is a really fantastic idea, even more than the idea of God I think.

It's slightly complicated for people to grasp the idea of a head of state in human form.

As far as I know, only a small minority of mathematicians, even of those with Platonist views, accept the idea that there may be mathematical facts which are true but unknowable.

So my idea of neurotic is spending too much time trying to correct a wrong. When I feel that I'm doing that, then I snap out of it.