Cultural Life: James Morrison, musician

Music: I often end up replaying my old favourites; Elton John's 'Greatest Hits', Stevie Wonder's 'Songs in the Key of Life', and anything from Steely Dan and Donald Fagen. I do listen to contemporary stuff too. I love Maverick Sabre and Katy B is really great. I also just bought Jamie Woon's 'Mirrorwriting'. My own songwriting tends to be quite traditional, so I really enjoy listening to records with cool beats and extra production.

Film: I saw 'Black Swan'. To begin with I avoided it because I thought it was going to be a weird film about ballet, but I actually loved it. It was so dark and sinister. Generally I like films with proper heroes; anything from Indiana Jones to the early Jackie Chan movies. The 1967 prison drama 'Cool Hand Luke' is always a great watch; Paul Newman is a pretty cool dude.

Television: I have quite a dark sense of humour so I love 'Family Guy'; an American animated television series. It goes to places it just shouldn't. Weirdly enough I also really like cop shows like 'Street Wars' and 'Traffic Cops'. But as a father I also always have to take 'Peppa Pig' into consideration when choosing what to watch.

Theatre: As a kid I always hated musicals, but I went to see 'The Sound of Music' and I just loved the songs and the sets. The whole thing was pretty cool.

Books: I recently read Kevin Lewis's 'The Kid: a True Story'. It is such a moving account of a horrendous childhood, but I found it to be a very difficult read. I tend to stick to more light hearted visual stuff; I always find myself flicking through Gary Larson's collection of cartoons. There's one where two bulls are blowing up an inflatable cow and one says to the other "She's looking good Vern"; it's absolutely hilarious.

James Morrison's album 'The Awakening' is out now