"The Bicycle Thieves is extraordinary for the technique that the director uses to stage a street-life opera; [it’s] quite extraordinary. The stealing of the protagonist’s bicycle – that whole segment lasts 15 minutes, possibly 20 minutes. The guy has created a street opera including cars, roundabouts, work men, traffic — everything moves with such ease, with such flow. It’s like watching a painting being painted in front of you by Picasso. It’s an extraordinary way to open a film that is also an extraordinary vision of a director being able to conduct almost like a conductor with an orchestra. Just a piece of solid, 20 minute music. Almost like Mozart used to do where it’s just pure music for 10 minutes. This is pure cinema for the first 20 minutes. Pure cinema. Then it gets into the scene where the guy tries to recover his bicycle and is just driving through Milan trying to do this. But that first 20 minutes — that first opening is operatic. It’s incredibly beautiful and that makes it one of my favorite films."

"I don't know how I came across that album to be honest. But again, some of the lyrics, oooh! Have you seen them live? Brilliant. Fucking brililant. Like a punk rock & roll trio with stand up piano, bass and drums. When we saw them, it was Shepherd's Bush and I wasn't expecting it to be so full on. But the way they create what they do on stage and live – it's almost like three jazz kids who ended up writing quirky pop songs. Their drummer is phenomenal, they all were. The bass player uses distortion at times and Ben bangs the hell out of the piano. I remember that gig really well. Remember when Matt Lucas had the character George Dawes? He was in the audience at that gig. And everybody in the room knew he was there. Everyone was locked into him and someone shouted out 'Tell us the scores George Dawes' and I felt really sorry for him! But it was just a really amazing gig and it's a great record. Rough but brilliant."