Of all the hard jobs around one of the hardest is being a good teacher.

My father was a teacher and there were teachers all around his friends they were working for the Government and their behaviour was within strictly limited areas.

If you put down a list of jobs doctor lawyer janitor teacher or movie star everybody would pick the movie star. And why? So you could lie around the pool drink margaritas and send money to your parents. So that's what I did.

When you become a parent or a teacher you turn into a manager of this whole system. You become the person controlling the bubble of innocence around a child regulating it.

My job requires me to put on a little dress and run around the streets of New York in heels. But I also had the financial means to hire a yoga teacher to come to my house while my sitter watched the newborn. For 95 percent of the world that's not realistic.

To the teacher weighed down with paperwork I say: you've been messed around too often. You came into teaching to spend your time teaching children not filling in forms.

You don't go around grieving all the time but the grief is still there and always will be.

Girlfriend and 100 Percent Fun were my two peeks around '92 and '96. The reality is that the times I had the most media success sold lots of records and played bigger shows I had the least control of my own life.

A sign now of success with a certain audience when you do a short comedy piece anywhere is that it gets on YouTube and gets around. It's always something you're thinking about unconsciously.

With 'Believe' bringing really big success for me outside of the U.K. for the first time it meant I have been touring around the world and that led to a gap from the studio. I really feel like the gap has done me the world of good. Throughout that time I was able to collect songs that I really loved.