I'm very tall, so I like a guy who's bigger than me - it makes me feel feminine and safe. I don't like to be hovering over a guy or feel like a linebacker.
Looking feminine is important to me. My personal style is fairly traditional. I was definitely influenced by my mother, who always looks elegant, and by Estee's classic style; she was always in Givenchy or Ungaro.
I didn't want to go to college or work in an office or have a nine-to-five job. I knew that quite clearly before I left school.
My father's death has given me a lot. It has given me a lifelong love of women, of their grittiness and hardness - traits that we are not supposed to value as feminine. It has also given me a love of men, of their vulnerability and tenderness - traits that we do not foster as masculine or allow ourselves to associate with masculinity.
Including my nine years as a student, the majority of my life has been at Hokkaido University. After my retirement from the university in 1994, I served at two private universities in Okayama Prefecture - Okayama University of Science and Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts - before retiring from university work in 2002.
I barley read stuff about myself. Even when I see some article about myself in a paper or a magazine, nine out of 10 times, I skip it.
I started singing when I was a little kid. I was about nine when we had a group with my four brothers. We sang spirituals. The old regular thing.
It takes me three months of research and nine months of work to produce a book. When I start writing, I do two pages a day; if I'm gonna do 320, that's 160 days.
I have a strong memory of the day I was told that my father had a weak heart and that he had to go to the hospital. He died when I was nine years old on the same day that Franklin Roosevelt died; it was his 45th birthday.
When I was a young boy I wanted to play for Newcastle United, I wanted to wear the number nine shirt and I wanted to score goals at St James' Park. I've lived my dream and I realise how lucky I've been to have done that.
