A nice Young man

There's a lovely interview with Paul Young in the Mail today; he's split from his wife, but is still friends with her; he's working in her restaurant to make ends meet as he blew all his cash on bad investments, and even the master tapes of his old songs are "falling to bits". But he sounds genuinely happy and surprisingly well-balanced for someone who has gone from Top of the Pops to washing the pots.

You might think, for example, that he'd be grudging about the overnight success model of Simon Cowell's raw materials, but no - he's just sad for what they miss out on:

'If we could find a room with cotton sheets for £10 a night, we thought we'd arrived. One time we nearly got killed when we were driving back from a gig and stopped to take a leak at the side of the road. We got back into our minibus but the road crew behind didn't see us and drove straight into the bus, writing it off.

'Things like that make for great memories. It makes me feel sad for people who win shows such as The X Factor. They're halfway up the ladder already.

They don't have to go through the whole slog of doing the circuit and they miss out on all the fun. It's like being thrust into your life without having to go through your childhood, school, adolescence - everything that makes you who you are.'

He's even happy on the reunion package tour circuit:

I didn't think the revival touring would be fun,' he shrugs. 'I didn't want to get stuck in the whole 1980s thing, but I was wrong. Everybody's always very nice. But, then, I've generally found that English pop stars tend not to have massive egos.

It's a sweet little interview. It doesn't, sadly, reveal if now he's fifty he's started wearing underpants, though.