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Back when I was helping put the swing into the swinging '60s, I used to hang out with Cathy McGowan. We'd be doing 'Ready Steady Go!' on T.V., and Biba used to make our dresses. We'd be in the flat in Cromwell Road on Friday night, just before the live show, and they'd still be sewing.

I was totally romanticizing the idea of Los Angeles when the Doors, Joni Mitchell, and Neil Young were hanging out there.

I did want to be Joni Mitchell for quite a long time.

I talked with Brian Stokes Mitchell, who agreed with me that if you have a gift there is always stuff to do.

Author tours used to have a sense of excitement and pleasure, a sense of occasion. I remember stores having a table with wine and food. It was just a real evening.

Just as we were finishing 'Paul's Boutique' we got our own places, and I was going out to clubs a lot less. I got a bit more introverted and spent a lot more time on my own reading. I would just go down to the esoteric bookstore and wander around.

Allan had come down wanting to do some sort of crucial music and I'd been involved in so-called Art Music and wanted to explore other areas - we were approaching it in some quite tongue-in-cheek ways and we had a lot of fun - we spent more time laughing than playing music.

As a kid, I did want to be an old-timer, since they were the ones with the big stories and the cool clothes. I wanted to go there. Now, I guess I want to bring that with me and go back in time.

I slept in the bedroom used by Sabine Baring-Gould's wife when I was researching 'The Moor,' and later the Jamaica Inn on Bodmin Moor.

At Marshall Field in Chicago, I had them take a big bed into the menswear department, one with black sheets. I'd get in bed wearing a nightcap, and my fans would get in bed with me, one at a time, and I'd sign their memorabilia. And then I'd give them a free pint of Ben & Jerry's.