My dad has sometimes felt that I grew up a little lacking in sufficient eccentricity - in the sense that I'm willing to live as an adult in a house with walls that are parallel to each other that sort of thing.

One of the things I like about when I tour sometimes is that occasionally you'll see a dad there with his 12-year-old son and they're both enjoying it.

I try to be a hard boiled sometimes. My kids see right through it. I'm acting. It's always 'When I say you'll be back at 11 that means 11 not 11.15. Do you hear me!?' Then 'Yeah Dad.'

I love my dad although I'm definitely critical of him sometimes like when his pants are too tight. But I love him so much and I try to be really supportive of him.

There's sometimes a weird benefit to having an alcoholic violent father. He really motivated me in that I never wanted to be anything like him.

What I love about the East End is that there's a great perseverance determination and courage. What I dislike about it is that there is sometimes a celebration of ignorance.

The memoirs that have come out of Africa are sometimes startlingly beautiful often urgent and essentially life-affirming but they are all performances of courage and honesty.

I'm a writer of faith who worries about the intolerance of religion. I look at the past and fear we haven't learned from it. I believe that humanity is capable of evil as well as great acts of courage and goodness. I have hope. Deep down I believe in the human spirit although sometimes that belief is shaken.

I think laughter may be a form of courage. As humans we sometimes stand tall and look into the sun and laugh and I think we are never more brave than when we do that.

Everybody even me sometimes had to compromise on something doing things we know to be wrong and this happens doing whatever job in the world. But a singer must have the courage of saying no.