- I was sort of, well, I hate the word bisexual, because I think bisexuality's just greed. There's no such thing, you're either gay or straight. But I've never said, 'Oh, I'm gay.' I always liked girls and fellas as a teenager, way up into my 20s. But my sexuality's never been a problem for me - I've got as many gay friends as I have straight friends.
- I still consider myself working class. I know my circumstances have changed dramatically since I was growing up back in Birkenhead. Now I live in rural Kent in what I suppose people would call a posh house. But it's still in me.
- The working class has taken a real battering over the past few decades, so much so that you can barely see them. But I have spoken to lots of cab drivers and shop keepers, for instance, who work 14 hours a day and are proud to be called working class.
- The Catholic Church has no right to wag the finger at gay people. How can we respect a church that has encouraged paedophiles by moving them from one parish to another, free to carry on again?
- It's Sheriff-of-Nottingham times: 'What do the working classes eat? Pasties. Let's tax those. Where do they go on their holidays? In static caravans. We'll tax them.' I didn't notice a tax on polo mallets. I loathe Cameron; I loathe Osborne. We didn't vote them in and yet here they are deciding for us. I'd like to see their heads on spikes on Tower Bridge. Seriously. I'd sleep well.
- Why aren't the bankers in the dock? The working classes are suffering in this country. They're a joke in the media - they're portrayed as chavs and rioters.
- I do count my blessings. I have had two heart attacks, and if I get to 60 that will be amazing. I don't fear anything nowadays. There has to be an angel out there. They are trying to steer me out of trouble 24 hours a day.
- [on his second heart attack] I've always said I have two great loves, Benson and Hedges, so it's not been easy quitting. But while smoking hasn't helped, I think my heart problems are congenital. Mum and dad died from it.
- [referring to the fact that he was born 13 or 14 years after his brother and sister] I was what my mother calls 'the last kick of a dying horse'.
- [on his second heart attack in 2006] I was in Waitrose and it was like an earthquake. I had to sit down by the yogurt, thinking: 'I'll be OK in a minute.' I went home to bed, then got up and made ice cream and meatloaf, as I had friends coming. It kicked in about 4 in the morning, so I took a painkiller and an aspirin and waited till 9am, when Sean who works for me, arrived. I was so white he thought I had a hangover. He nearly had a heart attack himself.
- You see things that make you more aware of mortality. I've lost lots of friends lately to cancer - and the AIDS years were like a clean sweep of all my mates. You have to accept things and realize you haven't got 50 years any more like you had as a teenager.
- [on his first heart attack in 2002] I'd sort of been waiting for it ... all our family has died of heart disease. But I never thought I wasn't going to make it. God, no. Everyone asks, 'Did you see anything?' No, sorry. Nothing. No heavenly choirs, no light at the end of the tunnel.
- I'm not scared of death at all. It's the way you die that worries me - that's the fear. I think I could lie there on my death bed and say, 'Well, I've had a good time and filled a book. I've done everything I wanted to do'. I think health can also be a state of mind, I've had three heart attacks and I'm fine. You've got to take your medication and exercise. Your heart's a muscle so you can't just sit on the sofa and moan you're not well.
- My cardiologist says I have the constitution of an ox. Three days after my last heart attack, I was back fire-eating with McFly. The heart is a muscle so you have two choices: Sit on the sofa and count your tablets all day, or get on with it and get moving - swimming and walking, gentle exercise.
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