"I also loved Madeline L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time.” My introduction to it was by my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Jeness, who read it aloud to us in class, a chapter at a time. Each day I could hardly wait for him to begin reading. I very closely identified with the heroine, Meg Murry, a girl who felt extremely disenfranchised in her world. She was physically awkward – skinny, with glasses and braces and crazy hair – felt socially inept, and was close only to her very brilliant, but very strange baby brother, Charles Wallace. Their father, a scientist, has been missing for some time – and one night the crazy ladies next door (witches, presumably – science fiction witches) prevail upon the children, and their friend, Calvin to “tesseract” through time and space to rescue Meg’s father. When they reach the planet where their father is held captive, they discover that it is a place where there is no free will, and beings are governed by a tyrannical “IT” a pulsing, logical brain that insists on conformity. Meg triumphs at the end, by using her illogical self – her passion for language, her emotional heart, and her tremendous love for her family. She saves them using only her awkward, non-conforming self as a weapon."

"I’m a fan of Ed Norton. He had quite an amazing double act this year with Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel. I remember I read the script of Birdman at one point and I thought it was brilliant, but then when I saw his performance… I mean, it’s wonderful when you’ve read something and when you then see the performance, you go, “There’s no way anyone else could have done that but Ed Norton.” I thought he was very, very good.What I love about Birdman is that most movies — when I see movies and television shows — dramatic things happen, and then people act dramatically, and sometimes you go, “Would you really do that?” Horrible things happen all our lives; we all experience loss and death and trauma. Usually, most people, I think, we just get on with it. We don’t have a whole soliloquy in the middle of something. [laughs] You just deal with life, right? But then when you see Birdman, one of the places where it actually works is in the theater, because people are so dramatic. That’s just the way it is. So it was very true in that movie. Of course, on a technical level, that movie was just insane."

"I was only nine years old in 1976 so I wasn't down the front at the 100 Club, I was still watching Doctor Who. Like everything in those days it probably filtered through slowly to Haywards Heath Market. It was the first record I bought. It was shockingly brilliant, and is one of those records that if you played it in 200 years time it would still sound like that. I think that they perfectly defined their own genre. They were the ultimate punk band. The other so-called punk bands to me sound like a parody of the Sex Pistols. It's a lot to do with John Lydon, he's a huge hero of mine. I was going to have a PiL record in here but I thought you can't have two records by the same person. I saw PiL play recently, and it's the first time I've ever done this, but I went to John Lydon's dressing room door to thank him for everything, but he was asleep. To have created the Sex Pistols was an amazing thing in itself, and then to go and create a new band that was just as groundbreaking in such a different way was unbelievable. John Lennon didn't do that. Jim Morrison didn't do that."

"Peter Sellers movies, I would have to have in on him. I’m tempted by Being There. Again, one of his more serious things, but a beautifully attenuated performance I thought he did in that. I haven’t seen the movie for a long time. I’m always nervous about saying, “Oh, that was a brilliant movie,” if you haven’t seen them for 15 years or 20 years, because you may go back to them now and think, “Oh, ah, well actually, it’s not great.” Or at least, “It’s got those great bits that I remember, but there’s a lot of stuff in between that is very unimpressive.” But I seem to remember the only thing that really spoiled it — and it was very much the fashion at the time — was the sort of bloopers edit over the end credits. And I thought that movie in particular did not suit and did not need shots of Peter Sellers cracking up. But obviously the producers or the distributors said, “Look, it’s a Peter Sellers movie and it hasn’t got a lot of laughs in it. Can we just stick something silly in the end?” And that is what they did, and it didn’t completely ruin the film, but it came very, very close, in my opinion."

"This album was a statement – here we are, Deep Purple. I think it changed a lot of musicians and the way they looked at music, in the same way Zeppelin did. But this rang British bells. They had other great albums, but this was the first one I got into – it’s great from beginning to end. Before this line-up, with Ian Gillan, they weren’t so heavy, then they went funky with Glenn Hughes, because he was a big R&B singer, though David Coverdale’s singing was brilliant. Come Taste the Band was when it went truly funky, after Ritchie Blackmore left. We toured with Blackmore in Rainbow a few times – nice guy one minute, then the next he could be odd. Once, someone threw a lighter on stage and he walked off and went back to the hotel. Other times he would play all night. He was very moody. First time we played with them was Donnington but we didn’t have much to do with them. One time we toured with them we did two shows and went down really well and they kicked us off – we turned up at Wembley for the next show and the gates were closed and we were told to go home."

"I didn't get into him at all for ages. For years and years I just thought, what is all the fuss about?' I just could not get into it. And then one day someone said: ""Have you listened to Hunky Dory?"". I hadn't checked that out at all. I really got into Hunky Dory. I transcribed and analysed nearly all the songs on it. I got into Low, and I quite like 'Heroes', and Scary Monsters. But there's a lot of stuff I don't like. I could probably list 10 Bowie songs that I think are amazing, and the rest of it I'm not too bothered about. I'm really obsessed with him as a character, as an artist. To me he's incredibly impressive and really exciting, his relentless drive to reinvent himself. Probably one of the most inspiring people I can think of. But musically, it's not quite as abundant. That last album: it's quite weird. I was really into Death Grips, he was really into Death Grips, and Kendrick Lamaar as well. It's an album that owes a lot to those guys, but then it's also got a saxophone player on it. This track 'Girl Loves Me', he uses the language from Clockwork Orange. It's just a brilliant idea."

"Would Betty Davis have been famous if she hadn't married Miles Davis? Well, is Betty Davis famous? Because it didn't really work; at the time, it put people off, because she was married to Miles Davis - "Oh, she's his missus, she's just bloody flaunting it. I'm not buying a bloody record by her". You can dress it up how you like, be raunchy and using sex to sell it and everything, but it didn't really work. So I think she may have been more successful if she wasn't married to Miles Davis, because it isn't anything like him. Some of her other records are a bit crap, a bit hit and miss in places, but this one reminds me of Grace Jones: it's got a lot of soul, and it gets a really good groove going, and she just does her thing over the top of it. A lot of funk used to give me a headache, but this has a few parallels with Captain Beefheart; it reminds me of Clear Spot-era Beefheart. I knew of Betty Davis at the time, in the 70s, and I completely dismissed her because it gave me a headache, but now I've rediscovered her. And she's brilliant."