a red check shirt by Yves Saint Laurent

'For six months it was great. I was having the time of my life. Then I realised that none of it, not even the fame, was making me happy,' says Jarvis Cocker of hitting the bigtime in 1995
Cocker has never given the impression of being the most sunshiny of characters. With his famously lugubrious manner and a complexion as pale as a candle, it's hard to imagine him relishing the prospect of a day on the beach with a bucket and spade.
But here he sits, in a sun-bathed beer garden near his home in east London, and clearly he can't wait for spring to be over and another great British summer to begin.
'I love the feeling of summer approaching,' he says.

"It is always in my step this season. What do you think of spring, everything back. You imagine this summer, will bring. Everything seems to be full of promise.
"So, it never glorious summer. The air is filled with the smell of the wet swimsuit, suntan lotion, candyfloss and sprinkled vinegar in chips. Everyone around you, seems technique '
His mood optimistic refused to be talking about the radiation from a nearby table credit crunch.
"I think the credit crunch is a brilliant," he said, a clear conscience. "We should stop complaining, began to celebrate. When times are tough, this is a chance to begin to look at life in a different way.
"Unless you live in the street and surviving diet abandoned Turkey legs, grey is not necessary. We've spent too long to own happiness on bright-coloured color, we don't really need. We have to stop using our imagination.

"Now it is time to realize the other a new pair of shoes don't intend to let us feel better too long. I am not saying that is not important. But many shoes need someone else double?
"The thing that can make us happy is right in front of our eyes, they do not need to spend six pence. A little sun and along the beach - you can't go wrong.
'I've always had an eye for nature, but it's the sort of thing to keep quiet about, because I don't want to come across as a mad hippy. But it makes sense to appreciate those things.'
Despite the fact that he's recently separated from his wife of seven years, fashion stylist Camille Bidault-Waddington, Jarvis has much to feel cheerful about.

Most notably, he's about to release his second solo album, Further Complications, arguably his most potent collection of songs since the heyday of Pulp. It's the culmination of a seven-year period that's seen him establish himself as something of a Renaissance man.
The mind-boggling scope of his recent activities would greatly surprise those who imagine his career was bookended by the birth of Britpop and his bum-wiggling gesture towards Michael Jackson at the 1996 Brit Awards.
He's made regular appearances on TV documentaries and curated London's Meltdown Festival. He's written songs for Marianne Faithfull, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Tony Christie and Nancy Sinatra. He's earned rave reviews for his concert lectures on the art of songwriting. He's even appeared on Celebrity Stars In Their Eyes (doing a flawless imitation of Rolf Harris) and popped up in Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire to play the leader of a fictitious pop band. While he gears up for a summer of live dates, he's also been putting the finishing touches to his work on the forthcoming animated Fantastic Mr Foxmovie.

Unless you're living on the street on a diet of discarded turkey drumsticks, there's no point in being gloomy

At the same time, he has been busy making plans to his summer vacation.
"You can't find my sitting on the beach of a terrible airport reading novels Majorca, get sunburnt. I can understand why some people will want to spend their holidays do that thing. If you do, need to sit table, you don't get too many chances, lie in the daytime.

"But I don't do a proper job. I spend most of my time lie. This is a self part of the job. I have too much to do what I think I had a very good tries - down.

"When I was on holiday, I want to leave. I want to do. If I on the beach, I want to swim or play cricket. If I point in rural areas, I'll go canoeing next rivers or bike around in my old raleigh bike. I don't mind the good hiking, as long as it's not too lofty mountains. Very high mountains make me dizzy.
"Article 15 years of my life, I seldom adventure beyond a few miles from my house. Exception is summer vacation, we're going to Torquay, donkeys, build sandcastles things. I usually seaside grandad. We will be at his level - grey jaguar, this is the most complicated thing, I have never seen. It has a red leather seats and a small table, you can play with toy soldiers. The car looks unbelievable luxury to me.

"When I was the first time we go abroad. Majorca. Then ibiza. But it's not very exciting to these places, because I didn't ride in the jaguar.
"Not all of my foreign holiday has been happy experience. A few years ago, I put my family for a ship around the island. It is very gentle, until we get to the island to have something to eat. The island is bumped and then. It looks like being locked in the world's biggest clubs. A complete nightmare.
"Personally, I prefer British holiday. I put my son (Albert) last summer camp. I hope he to experience life in the north of England, so we put up a tent, a local Derby. I had a wonderful time. But I think he feels a bit boring.

"I think it's my fault, I have no plans to travel. Albert very eager to do some fishing, but I'm not in the mood. I think I might go to tie a string in the end, with a stick insect to catch fish. He's only five years old, but he can see through my counsel.
"He turned to me and said:" daddy, it is not appropriate, the fishing? "I must admit, it isn't. But he put it in good spirits and it was fun while it lasted.

"I think we hear GeJieRui miscanthus in summer a considerable sum of money. Classic songs for the hot weather, but I would like to point out, Albert, drink, a driver," "not a smart thing to do, may let you killed.

I almost mistake he summer evening, but only in a city! I remember it was about romantic move in the park. No wrong, but little Albert is too young to understand it. "
Jarvis chuckles and takes a long sip on his warm pint of bitter. Now 45, he's recently taken to cultivating a large, unruly beard. Facial growth aside, he's remarkably unchanged from when I first interviewed him in 1983. The same deliciously dry wit. The same pipe-cleaner physique. The same wonderfully eclectic taste in clothes.
Today he sports a grey linen jacket from a second-hand shop in Paris, a pale green V-neck APC jumper he claims to have found on a London park bench, a red check shirt by Yves Saint Laurent, brown Herr von Eden trousers from a market stall in Hamburg and dilapidated black shoes from a thrift store in New York.