When it arrives, we're in full complimentary flow about the dapper singer-songwriter's excellent new album Out Of The Game. Trendily pitched as 'Wainwright goes pop!', in truth the project's a honeyed mesh of Elton'n'Nilsson vintage-isms and daring, swooping melodies - all uninterruptedly modernised by the neoteric sheen of Mark Ronson.

We're not sure if it's playfulness, sincerity or sheer weariness that drives Wainwright to inject such an early jolt of libidinous cheek into our chat - but when he portrays ...