[tori enters, huge applause from audience]

Gloria: why don't I get an applause like that? How are you?

Tori: it's good to see you

G: fantastic. Very much the lady of the moment, I noticed in the paper today you were at the Q awards last night presenting Tom with his merit award.

T: Tom! He's very handsome!

G: Is he handsome? Did you find him so?

T: He is handsome! And he said to me that young guys today don't know how to treat a lady. He said he would bring a woman breakfast in bed...

G: aha! You got on to the subject on stage?

T: oh no! [laughs] on the side of the stage

G: anyway, tom jones is who we've been talking about, but it's lovely that you've joined us. I was saying in the introduction that you have made cornwall your home despite being born in America. Now how did that come about?

T: love

G: love? A man you mean?

T: a Brit! Yes. He would not... he did not want to live in America. so he said "I want to know what your like when your 80, pottering down to the garden, but I don't want a green card." And that was a lot to take in in one sentence. So it was like, "okay, I marry him and don't go back for or have sun for awhile, but that's okay"

G: okay, so both of you were living in London at the time when you met?

T: he was south of the river and I was north of the river and neither of us would compromise. So he said lets do something else. And we have a little cottage there and the Cornish have taken us in. I mean it! They're wonderful!

G: lovely! You usually have to be there quite some time before they'll accept you as one of their own. So you're near Bued [sp?&Mac247;I have no idea] are you

T: very close! The thing is that they know that I know that I am only a guest there, and as long as we keep it that way then they treat me like I am family

G: so that really is home home.. and that's where you have your studio?

T: there we have a workshop.. and it's very hard for the record compant to get there [grins]

G: [laughs] takes them quite a few hours

T: oh yeah!

G: but do you like that life though? Have you attuned to it quite well?

T: I think living in the city for so long, LA then London, which are very different as cities, but you know, you get your taste, I was ready for walks in the moonlight and cows waking you up at 4am..

G: and of course you have a lovely little girl now too

T: yeees! [grins]

G: how old is she?

T: she's just two and we're taking us to the states with us tomorrow. She starts the tour with us.

G: so she's touring with you the whole time?

T: 150 cities, yes

G: so you're complete with nannies and entourage to look after your little girl?

T: oh there's an entourage but she's looking after them I think

G: so 2 going on 50?

T: I think so. Because she... she knows we're working in America and she's says "Tash work too mummy," I said "oookay" and she said... "money mummy". [makes shocked face]

G: so there's a well indoctrinated child.

T: yes!

G: I'd like to talk about your childhood a bit because this seems to be a fascinating mix, this Cherokee element, and I gather it was your grandfather that wove these wonderful tales.

T: yes, he was brought up by his grandmother, who escaped the Trail of Tears, which is the Cherokee Indian tragedy I guess... where they had to flee from the soldiers  and walk to Oklahoma which is a couple thousand miles. She hid in the mountains, as a 16 year old woman, and survived it. And she brought him upand told him all the stories and mythology umm... and the poitions and things she would make to make him better. And he'd tell me.

G: were you fascinated as a child?

T: glued to his side.

G: and when you heard about these strong women in your family that your grandfather told you about... she would have been his grandmother?

T: yes

G: has that influenced your own writing [the sound went for about 10 secs,I couldn't make out the rest of the question]

T: well the Cherokee are... it's a matriarchal society so I think that because of that you know, women were always empowered. And you were expected to sit at the round table and have your two cents worth and your views were considered... and so I was brought up with that. So women, it wasn't like "you know your place". I mean my mother would say "I have a [?] right here" and my mother you know, as a ministers wife she would look Jackie O [?]... that would be her look at church but she always had um.. they call them steel magnolias women from the south, and there's a reason.

G: yes, and looking at the album and the way you've woven some of the Cherokee stories into that, or the basis of it, coupled with the fact that you were in new york on September 11th last year. What impact did that have on some of the material?

T: I think walking down 5th avenue that day and smelling new york burning, the idea that a friend or a mother was wounded... and yes there was the mass murder, but also the city was.. she was flesh and blood that day. I think the French have always thought of france as a creature, but America hasn't necessarily seen their country as a mother. But the native Americans always have. But that day I think she became flesh and blood for a lot of people.

G: so I suppose as a writer you couldn't help writing that and expressing that within your material?

T: as a writer to be out on the road, we toured subsequently after that. To be out on the road when the masks were down, when people were... I don't know... I've never been exposed to something like this before, where people were talking about how thay felt in a way I'd never seen.

G: and in this case it's the brand new single off the album, a sorta fairytale. So what was the catalyst for that?

T: my character Scarlet, this is the sonic novel of a woman crossing the country. She thinks she meets her soul mate... maybe she does, but they don't stay together, and she's heart broken but they had a magical time... for awhile...

G: and you're going to play it for us now. Thank you tori.