If someone asks me, "What's your favourite kind of music?", I can't answer that question - never have been able to. I've put every track from my CD collection on to my iPod - there are 14,000 tracks or so stored on it now, with everything from classical to folk, blues to jazz, rock to reggae - fiddle music, guitar music, sax music, Ruth Etting and Kathleen Ferrier, Elvis Costello and the Balfa Brothers, Dean Martin and Doc Watson, Billy Pigg and Bobby Bland - and so it goes on...

All of which might imply that, for me, anything goes - which actually isn't true. There has to be some intrinsic character in the piece - a melody line, a harmonic sequence, an instrument set, a lyric - which hits the spot. It's difficult to define - but I know what I mean by that!

And the thing which, more than anything else, has probably kept my ears open to different music is conversations/sessions with friends both musical and non-musical. "Have you heard...?" conversations, and stuff like that. I also have a son whose taste is different from mine - but who also has got me going down different musical roads from time to time - for which I thank him.