"I wanted to throw in a film as well and this is a real classic. There’s a lot to say about it but what I really love is the location. It takes place in a vaguely French/Italian/Mediterranean environment. It’s like a fantastical Amalfi coast or Cote d’Azur seen through the eyes of a Japanese genius. Like all Miyazaki, it can be appreciated by people of any age and has deep, moving insights about growing up."

"A total earworm. It’s a guy called Alexander Brettin from Los Angeles. He has to his credit so far one single, two tracks. Wire are taking him on the West Coast leg of our American tour. It lives in a similar world to certain tracks on the last couple of Wire albums, and also Malka [Spigel, Newman’s wife]’s solo album. It’s an assemblage of harpsichord, flute, organ – it’s got a bit of Todd Rundgren, a bit of ’60s psychedelia, a bit of Sébastien Tellier."

"Wonderful! Brilliant! It’s very different to everybody else, and it’s all men singing who sound like women. It sounds like Jefferson Airplane at times, and you think, “Who’s that woman?” and then you realise it’s a man. And now that singer does TV commercials and plays accordion in coffee shops. They were quite big. In England, quite a lot of people bought their records. We DJ-ed a lot with our original one, and somebody stole it from a club. We’ll find one again! H.P. Lovecraft were really underrated in terms of the sixties bands from the West Coast."

"Let’s go with Jaws. I saw Jaws when I was about… I must have been nine years old. Of course, at the time it was the most terrifying film I’d ever seen. It kept me awake for days. It kept me afraid of the ocean for a while. It had me afraid of lakes in Nebraska, in case there were sharks there. I was nine years old. But there are so many amazing things about that, on a historical level. That was the very first film that opened nationwide on the same day. As far as I know, prior to that, they would roll out films big cities to smaller ones, coast to coast. But this opened worldwide, which ushered in the era of the blockbuster. So it was groundbreaking in that regard, and of course, that is something that defines the entire movie industry today. The interesting thing is that, 43 years later, the film holds up exceptionally well. The characters feel as fresh and original as they did so long ago. So well directed. The history of the making of the film and how challenging it was for Spielberg, and the broken shark and all of this, and all of the changes he had to make — none of those challenges are reflected in the quality of the film. So to me, that’s a fabulous, fabulous film."