London

I kind of knew Sam a little bit at Goldsmiths – she was there at the same time as me – but I really only got to know all that lot, people like Damien Hirst, at the Groucho Club much later; though Damien swears we used to play pool together at college.

Anyway, I think I first met Sam properly stumbling down Old Compton Street. She was with her partner, the gallery owner Jay Jopling. I was on my own. And she gave me her watch, which was very generous of her. I think she’d had a dream about me and done a piece of artwork about it, questioning what’s real and what isn’t: you know, perhaps dreams are why we’re here? Arty bollocks. Brilliant! I love art. The other day one of my neighbours said, ‘I went to this art gallery and they had really cheap art. You don’t have to spend a lot.’ Missed the point a bit, I think.
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Jay and Sam are London’s Regency couple, aren’t they? It’s amazing what they’ve done, the two of them. I don’t want to sound too sucking-cock, but he’s kind of old-fashioned and very well educated, and she’s elegant and glamorous, and together they’ve cultivated the most impressive and powerful circle of friends of absolutely anybody – one that the media has never really managed to get near. They’re fabulous but, at the same time, grounded in all the right kind of parable-of-the-sower ways. What they do has solid intellectual foundations. Jay has made artists into sought-after people, which they weren’t so much before. You’ll get rock stars and film stars turning up to art events but you’ll never get artists going to film premières.

I’ve got quite a lot of her art. I’ve done music for her pieces and she took the photos at our wedding. My mum’s got a portrait of me by her. It’s the first thing you see when you enter her house. I don’t think you can have pictures of yourself hanging up in your own house. I think it’s wrong. It’s like having gold discs up, isn’t it? Not in good taste. There are a couple of pictures of me in the loo, but I’m wearing women’s knickers.

Am I in Sam’s circle? I don’t see as much of anybody as I used to since we moved to the country, but glamorous people keep coming round. Do we sit round the Aga and play bridge? I haven’t played bridge for ages, actually. Dave Rowntree [Blur drummer] was my bridge partner. Sitting round the Aga’s a big source of joy, though. I’m a confirmed slippers man. I’m not ready for the pipe yet; I can’t really pull it off. Will Self can, but that’s because long legs are essential for pipe-smokers.

Sam is social glue – she can engage anyone from Posh and Becks to Damien Hirst. That diamond skull of Damien’s is brilliant because three-year-old children point at it and grannies want it. Sam’s art isn’t as smack-in-the-face brutal but she’s very good at drawing people in by using celebrities, recognising that they’re the demigods of the day. It’s not done trivially. She casts her work really well and she casts her life really well. She probably has a priceless address book. Not because that’s what she’s about; she’s able to command a priceless address book because she’s something else. The best art has always come out of courts – Mozart was employed by the Viennese court – and Sam and Jay have created a court which is more significant than the royal family. The royals have become a tabloid thing; Sam and Jay are the broadsheet version.

Artists are the true rock stars these days. They take more risks and express themselves better than people in bands currently. Pop music has become a bit of a career choice that would be approved by your parents. Art is fundamentally subversive, whereas the prevalent music of today isn’t subversive in the least. It’s fucking icing sugar like Snow Patrol. Pop music now is about making everybody like you, and someone like Sam has a much bigger agenda than that.

‘Bit of a Blur’ by Alex James is published by Little, Brown at £16.99