It was a tedious saying among hippies: if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. I was very much part of the problem.

The very pointlessness of a sea walk is it's attractiveness to me.

I've got a speech impediment.

I'm dead fussy about food: I don't eat junk.

Somebody up there likes me. It ain't like I've followed a well trodden trajectory.

I love the Arctic Monkeys!

I'm a great reader of credits; I never leave the cinema before they finish.

I'm not giving away sartorial secrets but the trousers I wear cost 19 quid.

If I'd have known how much fun fatherhood would be, I would have started way earlier than 45.

Literally' - I'm not having it; people can't go around saying 'literally.' Otherwise, what's literal? There's not another word for literally: if it isn't figurative or metaphorical, what is it? It's literal: there's no substitute.

A much underrated garment, the jegging: they never need ironing and they hold their colour.

They're very different things, a poem and a song, you wouldn't think they would be, but they are.

Poets are supposed to be underappreciated, don't you know? There is always a strange reaction to those who become successful in their own lifetime, and so I always felt lucky that I made the living I did out of it.

There've been lots of positive changes in the city since I worked at Salford Tech in the seventies, and I'm pleased to be known as Salford's Bard and to have helped put it on the map.

Me, I listen to all kinds of music, really.

The first time I heard rock'n'roll on a big sound system would have been at a fairground at the seaside. That's a hell of a sensory experience right there.

My dad was an electrical engineer.

I'd like to be rich, but without all the downside of fame.

My declining allure is a source of great sadness to me.

Where I grew up, the one unmistakable sign of homosexuality was to betray some interest in your appearance.

I was too old to be a punk rocker. I was a mod, that's really the only youth tribe I ever belonged to - and even then, not for very long.

I crack myself up. Even I don't know what I'm going to say next.

Being unapologetic means never having to say you're sorry.

I got to play The Vortex in London with the Buzzcocks, the Fall, me and Johnny Thunders And The Heartbreakers. That was a serious Manchester night.