"Alex Guinness, to me is — forget De Niro, forget Pacino — he’s the man. Alec Guinness is such a quintessential English actor, but he’s also a brilliant actor. He’s just the best. And The Man in the White Suit is just such a beautiful, charming movie. It’s about a man who invents a suit that you don’t have to wash. It’s a whole movie about it! It’s something that some of the more flamboyant directors should think about remaking. [Laughs] It’s about this guy who invents this material that keeps white all the time. It’s directed by Alexander Mackendrick, a fellow Scot, and the opening title sequence is amazing. Mackendrick is a brilliant director. I just enjoy his work; I enjoy the pace of his work. I think he’s really overlooked. He did The Ladykillers and Whisky Galore, and The Sweet Smell of Success. A lot of really cool movies. Alec Guinness, to me — forget Star Wars and all that — he’s just the best. And to work with someone like Alexander Mackendrick, who really understood what a story meant…it’s funny, because on IMDB the movie is listed as sci-fi. It’s not sci-fi, that’s ridiculous! It’s actually a very nice tale, about inventing the thing that nobody wants. Like a car that doesn’t need petrol. The thing that people don’t want because of the money [the auto industry] could make off of you. If you say hey great, I’ve invented this car that doesn’t need petrol, and then there’s a silence, and then there’s a gunshot, and you’re dead. It’s that kind of thing."

"I liked the intro really, it was so inspiring. ""I'm forty-fifth generation Roman,"" where did he come up with that?! Hip hop is massive in Nottingham. There's a massive black community, it's a multicultural city and people just mingle, you know, and share ideas. People were not sure about this idea of a white guy rapping. Even white guys were not sure about it. He's not rapping really - well he is, but he isn't. But you couldn't deny it really, it's all great. The second track, 'Has It Come To This', that kind of dubstep, garage thing. I never even listened to the second album. White people rapping, it needs to be done well. No offense to the guy, but I wouldn't view Professor Green as the same thing, it's more Americanised. Jake Bugg tried to do it on his last album and it just sounded terrible, what was he doing? I can understand him being inspired by stuff, but he needs to check himself. I liked the dry high street observations on this album, the stuff about eating a fry up in a greasy spoon. The stuff that would warm you to him straight away - fried tomatoes, scrambled eggs. That conversation he has with his dad: ""Hold it down son…"" We all do it, ""No, I'm going to be alright, it will work out."" I listened to this when it came out. I was still doing folky and acoustic stuff at this time, it wasn't very good. It took years for me to think about doing something like this. For a long time I thought it was out of my reach, I thought I couldn't do it."

"My entry into Gong would've been the Camembert Electrique album, which I bought for 50p or something like that. A lot of people at school had that record and, in fact, my first entry into being in a band at school was a band that just did Gong cover versions. It was an interesting education as I was dabbling around on an electric violin, and what with all those interesting time signatures. We did a street party for the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977 and just played Gong covers! Later, down the line, one of the guys who was in the band became a member of Gong in the 80s, a guy called Graham Clark, and we got to the know them quite well. We were that much of a bunch of fanboys that we would make our way into the dressing room. There was a point when Gong founder Daevid Allen was playing with Here And Now, which was like this festival-type band, and every time they came to Manchester they let us play on stage using their instruments. We had this group called Danny And The Dressmakers and we'd play the worst noise you could possibly play; it was like an anti-band. We went on tour with Here And Now in a converted ambulance and did three gigs with them. And so we built a strong allegiance to the brand of Gong, which has carried on throughout my life. We also performed at the Gong Family Unconvention in Amsterdam at the Melkweg many years later, and Daevid Allen stayed at my house a few times. He was a very interesting character and proper musical melting pot in terms of where he comes from. I picked Angel's Egg because it's when the band was still experimenting. There are tracks here that are real improv, while others are really composed. There are tracks where certain members take a lead on it. They recently put a box set called Love From Planet Gong and listening to the re-mastered version of Angel's Egg, it occurred to me that this music couldn't be dreamed up in most people's imaginations. It's a fascinating record."