When I’m not quite sure what I’m going to write about I sit down enjoy the food and

When I’m not quite sure what I’m going to write about, I sit down, enjoy the food, and people will come up to me and tell me the greatest stories about their lives. “Lionel, I broke up with my wife,” or: “Lionel, I found the greatest woman in the world,” or: “Let me tell you what I think about politics.” Every time I leave a restaurant, I’ve got at least one story or one more influence in my head. Right after I finish a recording session, or right before I go in, restaurants are my recreation. On several occasions, the builders had to say to me: “Mr Richie, will you please step away from the tractor? Move away from the tractor, Mr Richie, the ceiling has not been secured!”You wrote one of your albums, Renaissance, while you were in London.

What places in the city do you find particularly inspiring? Sara Bishop, LondonThe restaurants. Which makeover are you most proud of? Jill Skilton, CaernarvonI love the smell of sawdust and concrete being poured. The property I’m most happy with is the home I’ve just finished. It’s the Guggenheim estate in Los Angeles, and I love the house. It’s got amazing ceilings, antiques, a staircase and, of course, poured concrete – back in those days, the only way that they could earthquake-proof a house was to pour slabs and slabs of concrete I really like helping out when we’re renovating. I remember saying: “You mean to tell me that it took 45 artists with a hit record to get the world to wake up and see that these people are starving?” It took a celebrity face to get something done about Aids, and it will take another celebrity to raise the profile of something like sickle-cell disease. That we need a celebrity to bring these things to light is a sad reflection on our attention span.I know that you like renovating properties.

At one point just after we’d released the record, I felt sick to my stomach. When they showed the footage of the troops entering Baghdad on CNN, you could hear “All Night Long” playing on the radio I’m just so sorry – I’m not a fan of war. Before you run into a country, you’ve got to make sure that you know pretty damn well what the heck you’re doing I sat through the ruin and the fallout of Vietnam. I didn’t go myself, but I saw the lives it destroyed just because of poor decision-making I just hope this is not one of those situations. Only time will tell.You co-wrote “We Are the World” for Live Aid.