I met someone in the West Indies who was not able to walk. I put my hands on him and he was able to get up. I know the tabloids will get excited by this so I try to play it down.

I have found myself able to cure people with my hands.

I know what it's like to go to a concert, wait to hear your favourite song - and then they don't play it!

The first confrontation I had with an Aussie wine was a well-known Cabernet/Shiraz and it reminded me of boiled sweets. I find a lot of Australian wines unsubtle.

My dad had a dream of living in an Irish castle, even when we were in Argentina, and in 1960 he found a place without any heat or running water. We had no money, so it was tough.

I read about wine every day.

Being hydrated is a key thing for a singer, especially if you're spending three hours on stage five nights a week, and wine dehydrates me faster than beer.

It's critically important to have family around me, and some of my happiest moments are when I'm just with my family.

We are not politically naive.

I am a humanist.

I believe that music is an international language and deserves to be heard all over the world.

I don't spend much on myself. It's a bit of a joke within the family.

I will never forget seeing Alien when it came out in 1979. I'm not that big a fan of horror, but I remember the slow build, the claustrophobic feeling on the spacecraft, this tremendous sense of impending doom.

I remember years ago hearing a top band talking about a song of theirs that was a monster hit and they were really dissing it, saying that they hoped they'd never have to play it again. I thought: 'That's not right. If people love a song, play it.'

I went to Bethlehem in Christmas 2015 to do a television show for German TV and we filmed in the Church of the Nativity, literally above the place where Christ was born.

I'm not a fool with my money. I've known what it's like to be poor and I don't splash it around stupidly.

You know you get a tube of toothpaste... such a bloody con. You squeeze and squeeze and nothing more comes out? Well, take a pair of scissors and cut it about an inch and a half from the bottom and it's absolutely packed with stuff! I do that, then cut off the top bit, so I can stick that back on and it doesn't dry out!

I've 300 other songs, but 'Lady In Red' is just one of them. Funnily enough, in America, it is massive, but most people wouldn't have a clue who Chris de Burgh was.

I'd been to South Africa during the Seventies, when it was definitely not kosher to go there. I felt that the best thing to do was to be a missionary and tell people what was going on in their own country because censorship was so dreadful.

There wasn't a lot of physical tenderness with my parents. There was plenty of love but we weren't into the hugging thing, which now I've totally reversed with my family to the point where it probably drives them crazy.

My father fought behind Japanese lines in the second world war and it traumatised him. Everybody who knew him from before said he was the life and soul of the party - fun to be with - but after the war he was different.

You get pigeonholed. It's a kind of safety device for people who don't really want to look any further outside of the box, but I'm actually impregnable as far as what people say about me.

My house is a very calm and beautiful place and is full of positive energy.

When you're a solo artist and you're not doing well, it can be pretty tough. So when success does come, it feels like you've earned it.