Switzerland is a small steep country much more up and down than sideways and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture.

I didn't make my first solo record until 1981 so I don't have any 60's or 70's recordings but I am working on a large boxed set called DUST to be released next year the 20th anniversary of my first solo record.

I've chosen my wedding ring large and heavy to continue forever. But exactly because of that all the time that Dave and I have an argument I feel it like handcuffs and on anger time I throw it in a basket. Poor Dave he bought me three wedding rings already!

I get in trouble when I say things like 'I'm attracted to violence.' I was a pretty angry kid and I got into military history largely as a way to vent my own anger. As I got older it narrowed down to a more specific focus on individual violence. I'm just trying to understand where it came from.

I was a pretty angry kid and I got into military history largely as a way to vent my own anger. As I got older it narrowed down to a more specific focus on individual violence. I'm just trying to understand where it came from.

What do I think of L.A.? It's boring with some amazing nuggets. Like there are some parts of it that are great but by and large I think it's quite boring.

Despite the amazing diversity we're blessed with in this country schools are still in large part segregated because of economic disparity. Sports are one of the few areas where kids are really given the opportunity to interact with those of different races and religions.

And my first film was Carnal Knowledge another amazing experience largely because of Mike Nichols who would tell me you can't do anything wrong because you're doing everything right.

At 13 I realized that I could fix anything electronic. It was amazing I could just do it. I started a business repairing radios. It grew to be one of the largest in Philadelphia.

To really be centered and to really work well and to think about the kinds of things that I need to think about I need to spend large amounts of time alone.

Largely this is a class thing - writers tend to be cosseted little middle-class kiddies who think that the world owes them a royalty cheque. But just doing it - being in your room for years on end locked in your head alone with invented ghosts - it weakens and softens the body. And I know I can't just live in my head.

Shockingly a University of Pennsylvania study says the number of young people addicted to gambling - largely due to increased exposure to the Internet and Internet gambling - grew by an alarming 20 percent between 2004 and 2005 alone.

I grew up in a very large family in a very small house. I never slept alone until after I was married.

No enterprise small or large public or private can remain self-governing let alone successful so deeply in hock to others as we are about to be.

Brain power improves by brain use just as our bodily strength grows with exercise. And there is no doubt that a large proportion of the female population from school days to late middle age now have very complicated lives indeed.

There are signs that the age of petroleum has passed its zenith. Adjusted for inflation a barrel of crude oil now sells for three times its long-run average. The large western oil companies which cartellised the industry for much of the 20th century are now selling more oil than they find and are thus in the throes of liquidation.

But look I was born in 1956 the peak year for births in US history. I think I'm very representative of many of the thought processes my generation have been through and by and large people of my age have had their imprint planted on the consciousness of western society for a long time.

As winter strips the leaves from around us so that we may see the distant regions they formerly concealed so old age takes away our enjoyments only to enlarge the prospect of the coming eternity.

Probably the happiest period in life most frequently is in middle age when the eager passions of youth are cooled and the infirmities of age not yet begun as we see that the shadows which are at morning and evening so large almost entirely disappear at midday.