To tell you the truth I am hard put to think of anyone who's career was affected significantly by making all those phone calls and I must be wrong. I must be wrong! Because it has just got to pay off!

I'm bad at returning phone calls.

I practice at home, in between phone calls, and have much to do.

In moments when I question if I should be having kids, I think of all those phone calls from my sister-in-law, in which, 3,000 miles away, I hear my nephews screaming for her attention. I tell her I have to go because I am packing to leave for Europe, and her tone flatlines: 'That must be nice.'

He hadn't suffered the eternity of the ring about to be picked up, didn't know the heart rush of hearing that incomparable voice suddenly linked with his own, the sense it gave of being too close to even see her, of being actually inside her ear.

I'm signed to a U.S. label, and I didn't enjoy the 3 A.M. phone calls. I'm not a great sleeper, so I didn't enjoy being woken up.