You and your oven are capable of great things, Remember, no two ovens are the same. - Elton John

The only problem was that I was incredibly houseproud, so they’d end up having sex on the snooker table with me shouting, ‘Make sure you don’t come on the baize!’ which tended to puncture the atmosphere a bit.

The only real problem came with a track called ‘The Last Song’. Bernie’s lyrics were about a man dying of AIDS being reconciled with his estranged father, who had excommunicated him when he found out he was gay. They were beautiful, but I just couldn’t cope with singing them. It was just after Freddie’s death. Somewhere in Virginia, I knew Vance Buck was dying, too. Every time I tried to get the vocal down, I started crying. Eventually I managed it and ‘The Last Song’ was subsequently used as the finale of And the Band Played On, a docudrama about the discovery of, and the fight against, HIV.

In the instant that you love someone,
In the second that the hammer hits,
Reality runs up your spine,
And the pieces finally fit.