"I heard Nick Drake quite early on, in 1981, when nobody of our generation really knew him. A friend of mine had a big brother who had given him the Fruit Tree box set [first released in 1979]. When I heard it I was all, 'What is this?' Listening to him, I felt like I was going into a world no-one else knew, especially when everyone else was into post-punk. I also found it very sad, as it was the last album he made a few years before he died.

I've got a funny story about it, too. I did one of my first sessions for Manchester Piccadilly Radio in 1981 or so, when Mark Radcliffe was working there. I came down on the bus all the way from Hull, and he was housesitting for someone in the music industry at the time – I can't remember who – but I had nowhere to stay, so I just slept on the floor there. I remember staying up late with Mark going through this music industry guy's record collection, then finding some Nick Drake records and getting really excited. Going, 'Oh, Mark, do you know him?', and Mark going, 'No, who's he? He's great!' He became a big fan."

"Once I learned how to read Shakespeare (not till my mid-40s; I was a model), I realized maybe there are aliens out there who have two ideas per sentence. We’re lucky to get one per book. Greenblatt is a star-crossed scholar, who’s bestie at Cambridge, Eric Idle, became a member of Monty Python. So how much more fun can you get? I’m already wheezing to blow this island to get Stephen’s latest, “The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve,” and will need all of Will’s sonnets and plays, too, for reference."