Poet

I eat like a pig. Tripe is the only thing I won't eat.

I wish I could drive.

I hate chickpeas. I like hummus but I ate that before I realised it was made out of chickpeas.

I never saw a painting that would not be improved by the addition of tropical fish.

My look was based on the Madison Avenue guy who's just lost his job. Ivy League suit a bit scuzzed up, an outgrown layer cut and five o'clock shadow.

The first time I heard rock'n'roll on a big sound system would have been at a fairground at the seaside. That's a hell of a sensory experience right there.

To approach a poem as if it is a puzzle to be understood is to miss the point.

The '80s were a lost decade.

I'm a great reader of credits; I never leave the cinema before they finish.

Doris Day was the perfect woman.

It's miserable wearing black all the time, unless you're Johnny Cash.

I ain't got a credit card, a mobile phone or a computer. Call me sentimental. I think that's a whole world of trouble I ain't got no business setting foot in. And you know what? It feels good.

A much underrated garment, the jegging: they never need ironing and they hold their colour.

Me, I listen to all kinds of music, really.

To make the hips the focal point of a pair of trousers is, to me, a fashion mistake.

I got to play The Vortex in London with the Buzzcocks, the Fall, me and Johnny Thunders And The Heartbreakers. That was a serious Manchester night.

I love being on my bike, but I don't consider that a sport: it's too pleasant.

My favourite writers are columnists.

It took me 30 years for people to consider me an overnight success.

By the '80s, anything to do with punk was perceived as rancid. Me being known as the 'punk poet' meant my work and I plummeted.