James, the gangly floppy-haired Blur member, has no problem admitting he misses the attention. "Writing has probably saved my life, " he offers. "Once you've had the thrill of being in a rock band it's very hard to let go of." It's obvious he still hasn't quite managed to. Blur, not officially split up but on a hiatus since 2003, will reform and record another album if James has anything to do with it. And he clearly thinks it will happen sooner rather than later.

"We all naturally needed a break and we have all benefited from the break but funnily enough now that we don't need each other anymore maybe we can actually get together again. I'm quite hopeful about it." The sticking point probably remains Graham Coxon, the guitarist who was effectively left out of the sessions for Think Tank, the most recent Blur album. Coxon wasn't particularly pleased about how it went down. "Graham wasn't ready [to record] and we probably should have waited for him and we didn't. But we didn't know how long we would have to wait so. . ."

James says Coxon is now "up for it, " while Damon Albarn is busy with Gorillaz, The Good The Bad And The Queen and a Chinese opera he's just written. Drummer Dave Rowntree is trying to forge a career for himself as a Labour politician. In many ways they are a long way from making an eighth Blur record.

James might be forgiven for feeling slightly left behind, although he has found a happiness rock 'n' roll could never give him. He describes falling in love with his wife Claire as a hugely traumatic period. He had stopped drinking and got married very soon after meeting her. "I was completely thrown off balance by it in the best possible way, " he says affectionately. "On our honeymoon we bought the farm and moved from London to the countryside." It was a Talking Heads' 'Once In A Lifetime' experience. "Suddenly I had a wife and a child and a life. I didn't drink anymore."

From spaceships and supermodels to a cheese farm in the Cotswolds. "Rock 'n' roll dies when a child is born, " chuckles James.

"You can't be a c**t any more. Rock 'n' roll is a career in irresponsibility."

Settling down as a country squire, James began writing for The Independent and taught himself the discipline to turn up at the typewriter every day. He ended up writing "an antidote to the misery memoir. It's an ode to joy. I met Kevin Rowlands recently and he was saying 'Gino' and 'Come On Eileen' felt like an albatross around his neck.

My mate was called Gino and that was a f**king albatross round his neck . . . not a bloody song."

At 38 James is incredibly young to be writing memoirs and now prefers to listen to classical music. "I don't listen to pop music anymore. . . It's not really a rebellious industry anymore. You gotta make money out of making a perfume. The pop song possibly had its apotheosis at the end of the 20th century. You had this huge music culture . . .

Smash Hitsmagazine selling one million copies per issue, generating this huge industry. Bands making videos and records for a million quid. Spandau Ballet made a video for a million quid. At the other end of the scale you had this cottage industry of indie labels. Now music occupies a middle ground; it isn't the focus of culture, celebrity is."

And so, blessed are the cheesemakers.

James laughs at the potential cliche.

"Music is intangible, cerebral, ephemeral, whereas food is so basic, grounding. Maybe that's why so many rock gentlemen become farmers. Or maybe it's because we all think we're aristocracy." Maybe they are all just hippies. . . "Paul McCartney, Sting, Roger Daltry all became farmers." But they never had 'Country House' as their biggest hit, a song that satirised the jaded yuppie type that one could argue James has become. "I was like that song, " he says, reflecting on the irony. But isn't it harshly condemnatory of the privileged? He laughs, but it's the only time he bristles during the interview. "Well, Damon and Graham went to comprehensive schools and I went to a grammar school so I think Dave's the only posh one."

I wonder have the other Blur members read the book. "Graham loved it. I don't know about Damon. I expect his PA read it. I was turning in the final draft and Dave got his lawyers to read it because he was running for election. I got a request saying Dave wants to read your book before you do. Well he can't."

"All bollocks, " is how he now describes the whole Blur versus Oasis Britpop feud.

"Damon was trapped inside this famous face and Graham felt this wasn't the kind of music he wanted to be making and God knows what Dave was doing."

So when was the last time he listened to an Oasis record? "I've never listened to an Oasis record."

I tell him What's The Story, Morning Glory has dated quite badly in the intervening years. "Really. . . ? Well that's nice to hear."

'A Bit Of A Blur' by Alex James is out now, published by Little, Brown