c-span: and how long did you live in -- in cardiff? >> guest: for 17 years. in fact, my great-grandfather was on his way -- he came from lithuania, and he escaped during the pogroms, and he was on his way to new york, but he ran out of money in cardiff and that's how i ended up being welsh. c-span: where'd you go after 17 years? >> guest: i moved to london. c-span: why? >> guest: it was the place to be. cardiff was a dead kind of town, and london was -- london was -- was london. c-span: what'd you do when you got there? >> guest: i did -- i did a year at college in london and flunked out. and then, as we say in england, university life met. c-span: and then what? that'd be about 18 or 19, then. >> guest: yeah. i moved up to manchester, in the north of england, and started writing for little newspapers and working with pop groups, none of whom made it. in fact, i played keyboards with a -- with a -- with a man who wore a huge papier -- a giant papier mache head. his name was frank sidebottom. we once supported the teen group ross wembley, which was our -- our