WHERE ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE THE VIBES LIKE?

Manhattan. It's an extremely cool day for August, this apartment, and New York. There is a medieval plain-chant echoing in the air shaft from an unknown stereo, providing a monastic vibe.

WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE?

My breakfast. Cous-cous, dates rolled in coconut and half a cantaloupe that smelled a bit beyond its prime until I cut it open. It was delicious.

WHAT WAS THE LAST VIDEO YOU RENTED?

Time Of The Gypsies, a Yugoslavian film with an incredible soundtrack.

WHAT WAS THE LAST GOOD BOOK YOU READ?

A Bend ln The River by VS Naipaul, The Emperor by Rysvavd Kapuscinski, China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston, and The Woman Warrior, also by Maxine Hong Kingston.

FAVE POLITICAL FIGURE

Aung San Sun Kyi - Burmese democracy movement leader who was awarded the Nobel Prize while under house arrest.

WHAT TV SHOWS DO YOU TRY NOT TO MISS?

I normally avoid television.

WHAT WAS FIRST RECORD YOU EVER HEARD?

I have vivid memories of "Supercalifragelisticexpialidocious", from the soundtrack of Mary Poppins.

WHAT SPORTS ARE YOU GOOD AT?

Swimming, badminton, cycling, tennis.

MOST EMBARRASSING RECORDS IN YOUR COLLECTION

The Monkees retrospective (4 Cd box set).

FAVE JOURNEYS

Tuscany.

FAVE BOARD GAMES

Maukala - a simple African stone game I've played since third grade.

NAME THREE GREAT SONGWRITING PARTNERSHIPS

Holland/Dozier/Holland, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Brecht/Weill/Eisler.

WHICH PUBLIC FIGURES DO YOU MOST DESPISE?

Mass murderers in America who achieve overnight celebrity status due to the press and public's morbid fascination with their crimes.

FAVE HISTORICAL CHARACTERS

Hildegard Von Bingen - 12th Century German abbotess, poet, healer, natural scientist, author, composer. Mother Ann Lee - 18th Century English woman who founded the Utopian religious sect in the USA called The Shakers. Victoria Woodhull Claflin - late 19th Century freethinking radical feminist who was the first woman to run for the office of United States President over 30 years before women's suffrage. Harriet Tubman - 19th Century African-American woman born into slavery who escaped to the Northern Free States and then helped establish The Underground Railroad, a network of abolitionists who aided slaves in escaping bondage. Dorothea Lange - an American photographer of the Great Depression era whose portraits are among the most powerful I have ever seen. Amelia Earhart - American heroic pioneer in aviation whose plane was lost as she attempted the circumnavigation of the earth.

WHAT ARE YOUR VIRTUES?

Cleanliness.

WHAT ARE YOUR VICES?

Messiness.

FAVE PUNK ROCK RECORDS

Entertainment - Gang of Four.

FAVE TV SHOWS OF YESTERYEAR

The Twilight Zone.

WORST LYRIC YOU'VE EVER HEARD

"I'm still an embryo with a long, long way to grow until I make my brother undertand...." - Helen Reddy's I Am Woman.

WHO'S SEXY?

Carpenters and farmers.

CAN YOU QUOTE A LINE OF POETRY?

"... I stand amid the roar
of a surf tormented shore
and I hold within my hand
grains of golden sand
how few, yet how they creep
through my fingers into the
deep while I weep -
while I weep
O God, can I not save
one from the pitiless wave?
is all that we see or seem
but a dream within a dream?... "

Edgar Allen Poe

WHAT WAS THE LAST GREAT RECORD YOU HEARD?

Freedom Highway -The Staples Singers.

WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO RETIRE TO?

Connewango Valley.

NAME A RECORD THAT CAN MAKE YOU CRY

Martha - Tom Waits.

WHAT DOES 'INDIE' MEAN TO YOU?

Independent labels are usually refreshingly uncompromising, they fill a void in the corporate music scheme. Because of their size and limited ownership they have a strongly defined character.

WHO'S OVERRATED?

Pop musicians.

WHO IS UNDERRATED?

Environmentalists.

WHAT SCARES YOU?

Long tunnels, snakes, vicious dogs, ocean depths, aging, failure, violent films, nuclear power, toxics, rape, the Universal Price Code, religious fanaticism and another four years of Republicanism and Bush.

WHAT BORES YOU?

Talking on the telephone.

WHEN WERE YOU LAST DRUNK?

February 9, 1992.

WHAT WAS THE LAST DREAM YOU CAN REMEMBER?

Two nights ago - a small girl approached me with a bottle of mercurochrome and, with a small brush, began to spread it over my lips. The chapped skin began to burn, I asked her to stop. She painted layer upon layer, she drew laugh lines and reddened my cheeks. After she had made me into a clown, she laughed in a very satisfied way. She danced a tight circle around me. I sat cross-legged, helpless and foolish.

THREE RECORDS GUARANTEED TO MAKE YOU DANCE

1. Soulful Dress - Sugar Pie De Santo
2. Young Americans - David Bowie
3. Anything by The Mahotella Queens

WHAT CAN YOU COOK?

Vegetarian dishes in various ethnic cuisines - Mexican, Thai, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Middle Eastern, etc.

FAVE FM ROCK BAND

Nirvana.

FAVE RADIO PROGRAMME

Evening Muse and All Things Considered.

FAVE STUDIO DEVICES

A grand piano.

FAVE TAKEAWAYS

Cold noodles and sesame sauce.

WORST JOB YOU EVER HAD