I became a larger than life figure for one reason only. When you're quoted in the 'Wall Street Journal ' the 'New York Times ' constantly as the expert in the business people assume you're a lot bigger than you are. And then I had to run like hell to catch up with my own image.

My attitude about Hollywood is that I wouldn't walk across the street to pull one of those executives out of the snow if he was bleeding to death. Not unless I was paid for it. None of them ever did me any favors.

I've never been out with any of the cast of Coronation Street. We're all very close friends so it's very much a professional attitude.

Anyone who relishes art should love the extraordinary diversity and psychic magic of our art galleries. There's likely more combined square footage for the showing of art on one New York block - West 24th Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues - than in all of Amsterdam's or Hamburg's galleries.

I paint mostly from real life. It has to start with that. Real people real street scenes behind the curtain scenes live models paintings photographs staged setups architecture grids graphic design. Whatever it takes to make it work.

But on second thought after I decreed the state of emergency I came to the conclusion that that was impossible to achieve without bloodshed because the street protesters were full of anger and nearly out of control. This is why I thought we needed to find another way out.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with the tactics of the Occupy Wall Street movement it's easy to understand the inspiration for its anger as well as its impatience.

It isn't enough just to scream at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. We need our political system to start reflect this anger back into 'How do we fix it? How do we get the economy going again?'

You know I was a kid when I went into 'Coronation Street' and I had an amazing time. I got some fantastic opportunities from Corrie and from 'Soapstar' and I'd never say they did anything other than help me.

It's odd because I used to see pictures on telly or wherever of what I now know to be Shaftesbury Avenue and I used to wonder what that amazing street with all the lights was. Well now I know. I think when you get a wee taste of something it maybe isn't what you thought it was.

'Aladdin' was probably my favorite Disney animation when I was a kid. The animation was great and Robin Williams was unbelievable as the Genie. 'Aladdin' was an amazing adventure and the lead character was a hero for guys which I loved. It wasn't a princess or a girl beating the odds it was a street rat. That seemed really cool to me.

It's amazing that no matter how much money you have you can make some bad decisions and in five months you're on the street begging.

I run from Horatio Street down just past Battery Park City and back. It's amazing to run and see the Statue of Liberty and the ferries coming in. People think if you're not near Central Park there's nowhere to go but there's a whole ecosystem happening down here.

My siblings and I were friends with the boys who would become our stepbrothers - we grew up on the same street. I feel very special to have these amazing people in my life and if we hadn't all moved into this big house together I think I would have missed out on that because we would have drifted apart.

I had never walked on the street alone when I was growing up in Calcutta up to age 20. I had never handled money. You know there was always a couple of bodyguards behind me who took care if I wanted... I needed pencils for school I needed a notebook they were the ones who were taking out the money. I was constantly guarded.

Weird people follow you in the streets you can't sit alone in a restaurant or a cafe and read a book in peace and I think everybody values those moments of being alone.

I was always such a people-watcher. I would sit on street corners alone and watch people and make up stories about them in my head. Then all of a sudden I was the one being watched.

For what Harley Street specialist has time to understand the body let alone the mind or both in combination when he is a slave to thirteen thousand a year?

I began to speak well at a very advanced age - 15 16 17 years old. It was psychological: the trauma of war my family and growing up on my own. I was more or less a street kid.

I would often find myself at the age of 21 at midnight running down a dark street on my own with 10 men chasing me. And the fact they had cameras in their hands made that legal.