I’m sat on a wall outside the hotel bar. So the vibes are Sunday morning sat on a wall watching the traffic go past counting how many bicycles go past in a hour - which is 26. Usually.

Blue is the colour of... the blues. We were gonna call it "The Worst Blues Album In The World Ever", ‘cos if you made the worst blues album ever, as blue is a miserable thing, the worst one would be the best one, wouldn’t it? (If you say so- Ed). I’ve just been shopping, by the way. Bought a jumper and a jacket. The jumper’s brilliant. Not sure about the jacket.

I’ve got about 200 blue jackets, so blue is the colour of my blue jacket collection ‘cos every time I walk into a shop, I buy a fucking blue jacket. And they’re all exactly the same. There’s hardly any blue jackets I’ve seen that I didn’t want to buy. I’ve got a problem.

Football on a Sunday. Closing time. A good crack. I don’t mean that in a sexual way. Opening time.

Stig, as in Stig Of The Dump, ‘cos I was dirty and never used to wash after football. And never used to wash me hair or clean meself; it was left to me mum to scrub me on a Sunday. I’ve still got an aversion to cleanliness, really. Y’know how some people when they wake up they just feel like having a shower? I don’t. People have a go at me and say: "You just want a drink, don’t you?" But I don’t.

I suppose I just don’t like being wet, really. I always think there’s a possibility that aliens might come down and see us all lying in baths and think: "What the fuck are you doing?" You know those beach showers? You’ve been in the water and then you get showered? What the fuck are they on about?

Reuniting myself with three Portuguese friends - Christina, Paula and Victor who run a bar in Portugal called 60s Bar. That and driving through Spain, stopping the car and looking at the Egyptian vultures flying above us. I get excited about things like that. From 2 000 feet high they can see a piece of meat like it’s right next to them. So they could see me knob! I was very excited about that. It’s just a little.... hobby (rolls around in mirth).

Actually I don’t think I had one. I don’t really get miserable. I leave that to the recording studio and the records.

Irrelevant.

Bumpkin Billionaire. Which sounds like I’m rich and I’m not particularly. I’m very fortunate. Not lucky, because that implies something else entirely. At least it does to me.

One pint of lager top, two more pints of lager top, a Bloody Mary, that’s it. In the last ten minutes, heheheh.

Me mum’s got loads, like "Come off shore to buy a loaf" and "Stop being such a dog in the manger". Like a little kid who’s not playing with a toy - if he sees another kid pick that toy up, he’ll want to play with it suddenly.

Pretty late. About 18. I’d let it slip in this conversation that I still had me cherry, and this girl heard it. I think basically she wanted to deflower me, because within minutes she was all over me. She was about 26 or something and she sort of came on strong. It was alright, showed me what I was missing, but someone telling you what to do - you’re pretty much on the back foot aren’t you?

I still have a desire to be a virgin, really, a longing to be childlike. Dancing round the room with just your shirt on and no underpants and just singing and being, well, young and innocent, like you were. I don’t think there’s any loss of innocence in having sex: just innocent in not drinking, not smoking, and just being Paul. When you go to a pub you lose your identify a bit, you become Paul Who Goes To The Pub, Paul Who Drinks And Smokes And Fucks And Everything. It’s a desire for the past. But not anything that really worries me.

No. But there’s an element of me which makes me think I should be gay. Should be, but not could be. Because I get on so well with men. I get on well with women too, but a few years back, in relationships where you weren’t being honest, I just thought: Would I do this to a male friend? And the answer would be: "No". Occasionally, I’ve said: "Let’s have a look at your knob then, just for a look.

It’s a good job I’m not a woman, ‘cos all the men I’d go for would be off the telly. I’d be a right bleedin’ groupie, anyone in a football kit or anyone on Top Of The Pops. It’d be like: Saw him off The Pops and thought he’s alright, inee? If I was a woman I’d be hanging around Top Of The Pops all day having me chest signed!

Me magic pixie which helps keep me alive (the yellow pixie he meditates over on flights to ward off death vibes). And Teddy Dinty, me teddy bear.

When I was about eight, I saved up Green Shield Stamps in Sheffield and bought Teddy Dinty; he’s still got his original polo round his neck and I still treasure him greatly. He hasn’t been to America yet, but he wants to go. I got the magic pixie from a gypsy at me door who was selling pegs an’ that. Brilliant. Genuinely magic.

Somebody who’s a quarter Irish, a quarter quart-sized, a quarter from Manchester and a quarter somebody who fancies me.

Me. You don’t think I mean that, do you? But I did. You’ve got a real exclusive here. Very rarely am I big-headed, in fact I’m usually over-modest, but I thin I’m cool. I know where I’m going, I know what I’m doing. I’m comfortable with what I’m doing, although I don’t always dress up to scratch.

Pretty much everyone I meet I get on with; I don’t annoy people. And that to me is cool. Wait till the others read this: "Fook off yer fat fooker!" So there. I’ve got it all of me chest.

I wouldn’t have mourned. I wouldn’t have given a fuck. It’s not like I don’t give a fuck about them or their music, I just don’t give a fuck whether they wanna argue or not. Go’n see a psychotherapist!

I was in a band with me brother a long time ago and when you start arguin’ and bickerin’, it’s like: so fuck? An argument’s an argument, and if you really wanna be "Top Of The Pops", you just forget it and go for a drink and get on with it. They’re a couple of little kids who are acting like "dog in the manger", knowwhatImean?

I’ve had people who’ve showed an unhealthy interest in me. They’ve thought the songs were about them, and that I liked them, or knew about them. There’s people who think I’m a total lad, who thin I just wanna drink with them. I’ve had a few people in me personal life I’ve wanted to get rid off. Been sent hate letters. Not by people I know - everybody I know likes me, heheheh.

For a while, people were accusing me of trying to tempt people into being gay. They said they didn’t mind me being gay, but wished I wouldn’t encourage people in me lyrics to be gas as well. The main reason they thought this was because of the first line to "I Love You But You’re Boring" which went "bake phallic cakes". And then when The Sun ran this campaign against me in 1987, saying I was gay, I presume they’d put two and two together and presumed I wanted to ram cakes up people’s arses.

I got phone calls ‘an all saying: "I’m gonna stab you", so I’ve just given them me address straight over the phone. Of course, they always bottle out, and I’ve been hiding under the bed. Nobody wants to stab you, really.

You what? What’s that? They’re not from Liverpool are they? Are they from Glastonbury? Do they take a lot of drugs? Well, if they’re right, yeah. But somehow I think it may be flawed and I’ll be taken out into the countryside and shot.

I’ve heard Kula Shaker. Didn’t think they sounded very good. Does David Icke sing in that band? I like Cast’s last record, though, and I like the way they dress. See? For a 34 year old, I know a lot about music.

A Labour win without a working majority, a re-election, then Tony Blair’ll win with a proper majority. I won’t be voting Labour, no way. I’ll be voting Socialist Labour. Definitely. I’d rather vote for the Liberals than Labour. Blair’s an economist, same as the Tories. Scrapping child benefit, same plans as the Tories in 1978. Going for the pensioners’ vote, the lot.

What’s going to happen is there’ll be perfect equality for everyone, but only for management and ruling class material. They’ll all be identical and the working class will become a gypsy class of travellers, and there’ll be 200, 300 people running the country and everybody else’ll be needing a day off and that’s the history of the world.

It’s like natural selection. It’s like giraffes - giraffes grew their necks long because the short giraffes died. It’s not a bright future. But we can have a hell of a lot of beers before we go. And I wouldn’t mind being given a beer by a robot.

(Paul Heaton was showing his magic pixie to Sylvia Patterson - VOX Jan 1997)