If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change?

I would not toy with people's affections as much.

My drinking habits.

I should have sung with David Gilmour at Carnegie Hall because I'm a massive fan of Pink Floyd.

I’d edit out all my gauche incomprehension.

I’d have told a racist cabbie to go fuck himself, but I was scared about being chucked out on the street at 2am.

To be born independently wealthy.

I was a very lazy child, but I think I’ve made up for it by being a workaholic. I might push some of the work back to my childhood.

I would have taken more drugs.

A bilious green suit springs to mind.

I would have stopped making records after They Don’t Know.

I read too much science fiction to mess with anything. I’d be terrified that, by changing something, my kids wouldn’t be mine.

I’d have made more of my education.

The 12 years I spent in receivership. That was me being a dick. I lost the court case when I wanted to sack my management and had to pay them £120,000. I said, “I am not paying you, because I should have won.”

I would have tried to meet Lou Reed backstage. I went to see him for years, and never tried to meet him. Eventually we met at award shows and did become friends.

I would take things a little slower.

I would have thought more about exercise and a healthy lifestyle in my 20s, 30s and 40s.

I would be much more available for my brother when he was not well and try to understand more about mental health, which I didn’t know anything about at the time.

Nothing – haven’t you heard of the butterfly effect? I could find myself still collecting glasses in Charnock Richard while Donald Sutherland would be enjoying my life.

There are several boyfriends I wish our paths had not crossed.

I’d stop my teenage self worrying about how my life was going to pan out.