I Happen To Like New York: I tell people all the time, so they will be sure not to forget.

Funerals are for the people left behind, so I don’t mind.

That’s always changing, depending on how I think I’m going to die. At the moment, I’d like my own song Away from the Sky at my funeral.

At the end of every show, I always blast September by Earth, Wind & Fire at full volume as people leave. It is the best song in the world and has a sense of total positivity, community, friendship, physicality and memorability. It feels like an extraordinary human experience, a sense of joy and celebration that we are lucky to be here at all. It reminds me why I am alive, and I’d like to give people that. The ultimate end to my big gig on earth!

When I met my husband, David, in 2006, on Dating Direct.

Travelling Europe with a friend, when I was 29. She was driving and the brakes went, on one of those vertiginous Italian mountains. It was terrifying for the 20 minutes it took to coast down the mountain.

A pair of Russell & Bromley boots with studs. I have had them for eight years and wear them all the time.

On a cosmetics production line. I walked out after half a day.

I cried after I won the Booker.

The people I never thanked for what they selflessly gave me in my career; when I was younger I just took it for granted.