Once I started working with generative music in the 1970s I was flirting with ideas of making a kind of endless music - not like a record that you'd put on which would play for a while and finish.

As a bookish child in Calcutta I used to thrill to the adventures of bad girls whose pursuit of happiness swept them outside the bounds of social decency. Tess of the d'Urbervilles Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina lived large in my imagination. The naughty girls of Hollywood films flirted and knew how to drive.

But I was very very lucky and it was a wake up call as far as motorbikes are concerned. I never flirted with death on the bike but now I'm totally convinced they're death machines.

I think you have to be cool to be a good flirt and I don't think I'm very cool.

One of the best parts of growing older? You can flirt all you like since you've become harmless.

Flirting is the gentle art of making a man feel pleased with himself.