"Sheep Brains Taste of Nothing"

Pro did an interview with The Gaurdian in which he talks about his hatred of cheese and how he thinks sheep brains taste.


My first memory of food is my nan – my official guardian – spreading lard in an oven tray. Just thinking about it makes me feel ill.

I can't remember any cooking done by my father. I associate him with McDonald's, which says a lot. He introduced me to the woman he ended up marrying at McDonald's in Hackney. He took me for a Big Mac and sprung it on me.

I stopped going to school at 13, because I was a shit and my nan saw how I was affected by my relationship with my father and sympathised. If I came in for lunch I'd have nan's soup. Nan wasn't into seasonings, and a lot of the food I grew up on was bland and frozen, but I discovered tastier things from friends later.

Cheese has my least favourite food smell. Melted cheese repulses me. My manager, as a joke, included a selection of continental cheeses on my rider, so I'd come in the dressing room and it'd stink of blue, green and other horrible coloured cheeses. It really wound me up and I had them removed in a huff.

I moved out of home and in with my then girlfriend, Naokr, who was half-Italian, half-Japanese and the best cook I've known. Once she had me chop chillies and afterwards, without washing my hands, I went to the toilet and an interesting penile sensation graduated to an extremely painful one. With my trousers and boxers on the floor I begged: "Get me a cold flannel". It took Naokr a long time though, as she was on the floor laughing.

I took 12 of my closest friends to Ibiza last year and we got a villa with a massive double oven and a barbecue outside. I've never been part of a big family – and that's what it felt like. We only left the villa to go to the beach or to the food shop, and we took turns making meals, morning, noon and night. I did my chicken escalope. We ate sheep brains, from the butchers. Rather strange, brains – they didn't really taste of anything.

I've been fed intravenously, but it wasn't when I got stabbed in the neck [at a nightclub in 2009]. They thought I had colitis – the pain was horrific – but it turned out to be campylobacter, which is severe as salmonella and makes you feel like you never want food again. I was in hospital for five days and lost a stone.

I always ate on the sofa or on the floor as a kid. Nowadays if I cook I always eat at the table, I'll never eat in the living room or bedroom.

My dream dinner guests would be Hitler, Gandhi, Thatcher and Frankie Boyle.