The book itself took Mark five months to write and "nearly two decades listening to him moaning." It is very much written from the point of view of a fan, not least because Mark writes about Morrissey through the messages in his lyrics and from what he's said in interviews. The second chapter, 'On A Hillside Desolate', is Mark's Morrissey Fan Autobiography - from seeing 'This Charming Man' on The Tube, "minding my own business slouching on the sofa, picking wax out of my ear" and realising that Morrissey was "simply, the funniest, saddest, smartest, deadliest thing I'd ever seen", through his time on the dole in Levenshulme listening to The Smiths, and then onto Morrissey's solo career where he "drove five hours non-stop and flat out in a borrowed ten-year-old Renault 5 automatic" to see Morrissey in Glasgow, but "of course, the bastard stood me up. The concert was cancelled - due to 'ill health'. A bitter, Morrisseyan joke."

Whilst many books have been written on The Smiths and Morrissey, I have to say that Saint Morrissey is one of my favourites. While Johnny Rogan's The Severed Alliance is a 'worthy tome' packed with facts and breeze-block dimensioned (I once dropped my copy on my toes and cried expletives I didn't even know), his writing style is like wading through a swimming pool of thick, gluey porridge. Though Saint Morrissey may not detail Morrissey's inside leg measurement, Mark's prose voice is instantly engaging and excitable. For Mark is a fan, and though Rogan is too, Mark writes as a fan. All the research he needed to do for the book, really was "having an unhappy teenagehood and using pop music to cheer myself up. Which is why, of course, I was so vulnerable to that peculiarly potent mood-altering substance known as Morrissey." The book is about Morrissey's effect on his fans as much as it's about The Stressford Bard, and so most fans can slip into Saint Morrissey and embrace a voice that is very much like their own.

Having written Saint Morrissey, which Mark describes as a 'psycho-bio', he was probably rather worried when, during his interview on British tv with Jonathan Ross (who loves Mark's coinage, ooh matron, of 'metrosexual') in 2004, Morrissey claimed he was writing his autobiography. In 2005, a rumour circulated that Morrissey had been negotiating with a publisher and demanding a seven-figure sum. But does Mark believe that Morrissey really would sit down at his typewriter and write his life? "I'm a tad biased, after all I've written a bio of him, someone I've never met, and the last thing I want him to do is go and spoil everything by giving his side of his story, but I can't help thinking that such a book from him is a little... superfluous. After all, he's already written and published his biography over the last twenty years or so, and it's note perfect. Mind, I'll be the first in the queue for a copy though, with my thermos and deck-chair."

Hailing Morrissey as a saint, and then seeing him parade about in his rather fetching priest costume had me wondering: what would Mark do if Morrissey was canonised? Would he become a priest? "No. I haven't got the ankles." Yet writing about Morrissey is dangerous ground, as Mr Rogan found out. So, Mark, has Morrissey wished you dead in a) a pile-up on the M6, or b) in a hotel fire? "Not that I'm aware of. But there's still time...."

Saint Morrissey has just been published in America (although some copies have made it over there already, in fact). Knowing what a passionate bunch the American Moz fans are, compared to the wry, eye-rolling British version, what does Mark think the American fanbase will make of his book? According to one review in America, "I wrote St Moz because I fancied him rotten and wanted his babies and hoped the book would have him come running. Americans do tend to take things somewhat literally don't they? Bless 'em."

The academics don't quite see eye-to-eye with Mark either. Mark decided not to go to 2005's Morrissey conference at Manchester Metropolitan University (my librarianship alma mater), because he's "allergic to dandruff." Yet they didn't even invite him, which "was a little bit disappointing as I like to turn people down. It's understandable, though. After all, I'm much cleverer, funnier and better looking than them, so why would they want me at their support group?" Perhaps Mark's presence would have made them realise how superfluous an academic conference on Morrissey is. The Bequiffed One's fans are intelligent enough to analyse his words without Cultural Studies professors interceding for us.

Mark is often wheeled out for tv documentaries that mention The Smiths and Morrissey. The most recent was probably the episode covering the 1980s in a series of documentaries on pop music and sex. Mark appeared alongside Johnny Marr and Michael Bracewell (Mozzer's 'sister-in-law'), talking about the asexual nature of The Smiths. While Johnny explained how he and Morrissey wanted to tell the world that they didn't have to be 'straight' or 'gay', Mark talked about the effect that this had on the fans. As anyone's noticed who's been to a Smiths or Morrissey gig, or seen footage of them, it's intriguing the way that 'straight' men behave. It's as if they are secretly titillated/intrigued, so that Morrissey's 'ambiguous' / 'not straight' persona allows them to explore the 'not straight' aspects of themselves in a 'safe' way. Mark says, "Moz has already declared himself 'not straight', over and over again with his lyrics and his stage performances. As you suggest, that's part of the reason why the 'straight' boys all try to mob him and kiss him, finding in him possibly the only way to express their straight non-straightness, if you will. I suspect that if he were to declare himself the only gay in the auditorium it might put the dampers on this. I don't think it's merely a pose or cunning strategy on his part though; regardless of what his sex life involves, or doesn't involve, I genuinely believe that he isn't 'gay' or 'straight'. A preposterous position which, funnily enough, is probably what he has in common with most of humanity. Mind, now I've said that he'll probably have his own float at Pride next year."

Mark's tv performances are always fun (I have a bad habit of jumping round the room when I see him, resulting in carnage as everything falls off the bookshelves), and he always seems to be wearing a singlet vest in them. Where does he get them from? "Oxfam. I only choose the really stained, grayish ones. Maybe I'll photoshop Moz into one for the next edition of St Moz."

The cover of Saint Morrissey will be familiar to anyone who's seen the cover of Live in Dallas,which, unfortunately, always sounds like a dodgy film to me - Mozzer Does Dallas. Especially with his top off, bare-chested, but unlike his Smiths days, not as vulnerable, in fact now somewhat pugilistic. So why was this the image that Mark chose for his book? Perhaps for the next edition, Mark might consider a photo of Morrissey in a nice tweed jacket, and maybe even airbrush in a pipe? "Although he has more than a little lesbian in him, I don't think the Well Of Loneliness look suits him, even with those sideburns. I thought he looked quite iconic in that cover image of my tome, if a little malnourished. There's a famous statue of Narcissus that looks very similar - save for the quiff." Speaking of which, what's your favourite Morrissey look? Is it the sweaty, slightly toned, ripped-sparkly-nipple-revealing-top Moz of Live in Dallas? Surprisingly enough, it isn't. For Mark, it's "the early jumble-sale frilly collared blousey Morrissey. Like a lesbian James Dean fan making a gesture at femininity for visiting parents."

Johnny Marr has said before how there was some kind of sexuality agenda in The Smiths. In one case, that he wanted the band members to wear bowling shirts and have crewcuts to 'look gay'. As straight as Johnny may seem, with his long marriage to the very lovely Angie, the closeness between him and Morrissey in many photos from the Smiths' days may make some people stroke their chin knowingly. Or perhaps, for many of the non-straight fans, there would be something somehow reassuring if one day we discovered that Moz and Marr had kissed behind a bunch of daffodils. They have the same feelings that we do!. So, Mark - your expert opinion, please. "Of course they were a couple. But one which probably never got around to actually having sex. Or maybe even fancying one another. That would have been banal. Luckily for us their consummation was writing the best, most passionate and most potent pop music of their generation."

Whilst the effect of Morrissey's 'not-straight' persona on the 'straight' male fans has been mentioned above, and while undeniably he has an affect on 'straight' girls, does Morrissey have 'a big gay following'? Most of the passionate Morrissey fans I know are bi or gay. Perhaps this is just coincidence, or maybe the appeal of Morrissey being 'someone like us' - the campness, the 'palare', the identification with someone who doesn't fit 'the norm'. Love is natural and real, but not for such as you and I, my love, is like the ache of every same-sex couple who don't feel comfortable kissing in public. "Yes, Moz does have a big gay following, but he can look after himself and besides the police have been informed and a restraining order has been issued.... Although the vast majority of his fans aren't gay, I think there are many queer Moz fans, because he's a very queer fish. And because, if nothing else, Moz represents the revenge of the thwarted, despised, ridiculed adolescent on Mum & Dad, on Schoolmates, on The Youth Club Disco, on The World. But the queer Moz fans tend to be not only outsiders from 'straight' culture, but 'gay' culture too. Most gays can't bear him: 'Oh no, Morrissey! Haven't you got any Kylie?' Anyway, Morrissey obviously isn't gay: have you seen those eyebrows?" That is quite true... though on the subject of body hair, Mozzer's chest fur comes and goes. It's typically eccentric, perhaps, to de-fuzz your chest while your eyebrows seem to have been stuck on for a joke (but they're Mozzer's eyebrows, so we love them anyway).

Oh, I have a confession to make. When I told my friends that I was interviewing Mr Simpson, some of them got very excited and wanted to ask him some questions of their own. David, who wrote that rather splendid article on Morrissey's use of sound effects, decided to ask about Mark's opinion on The Smiths' cover art. So, over to David. "It's taken as a given that the Smiths covers are some sort of 'camp hall of fame', but as Mark is part of the gay community and a contemporary fan, i'd like to ask him about that art and how it was received at the time. Was it only something that gay fans picked up on back then? (i know he says he saw 'This Charming man' on tv and JUST 'KNEW', but were there any covers that communicated this subtext more particularly?). Also does he think the Cover Art reputation is in some ways over-stated, as I don't think they're all necessarily 'camp'?"

To which Mark replied: "I'm not a member of the gay community. Don't you know I've been banned? The gay parish council met at the Methodist Church Hall last week and unanimously passed a motion of censure against me for 'letting the side down', hanging around the chip shop and generally having 'the wrong kind of attitude'.

"I don't mean to be difficult, but I'm not sure that the covers are 'gay' or necessarily 'camp'. They're quite sincere. Certainly I took them very seriously indeed. The cover art, in addition to being unfussily beautiful, like most of the cover stars themselves, like The Smiths themselves, reeks of intense, lonely nostalgia; nostalgia for a vanished/vanishing working class culture, nostalgia for a receding Englishness, nostalgia for a departed innocence, nostalgia for a lost childhood, nostalgia for a life forever just out of reach, never quite actually, in fact, lived.

"A whole generation of young people - or at least that half not listening to Wham! - responded to those images, regardless of their sexuality, or gender. Yes, I think quite a few lonely young homosexuals found those images especially resonant, because lonely young homosexuals recognise those symptoms all too easily, and perhaps that was me too."

As I mentioned above, Saint Morrissey is written from the point of view of a fan, so Mark draws out the fact that Moz is himself a fan. Who can forget the bemused expression of Sparks in the documentary The Importance of Being Morrissey when they discovered that 'someone' had stolen their unfinished breakfast from their plates? In being a fan, Morrissey became fond of mod-revival-revivalists The Ordinary Boys in 2004, to the point where they were not only one of his support acts, but it was reported that Moz allowed the singer, Preston (who has now lost all indie credibility by slouching round Celebrity Big Brother in the world's most horrendous towelling dressing gown while Pete Burns sashays about in a dead gorilla), to stand at the side of the stage when Moz played Reading. But would Morrissey have liked The Ordinary Boys if they weren't named after one of his songs and the singer didn't look like a youth club boxer? "Well, would you? Personally, I would have had a much lower opinion of them if they'd neglected to wear those lovely stretchy jeans, c. 1982. But since they did I can tell you that they're enormously talented." And what does Mark make of Morrissey's relationship to his fans? When he says "don't forget me, I love you" at the end of Live in Earls Court (which also sounds like the title of a dodgy film), he sounds rather choked. He means it, doesn't he? "I'm sure he does," says Mark. And what of his rather eccentric use of a fan site, true-to-you.net, to issue his decrees, in a world where every other 'celebrity' uses their official record company website? "Well, it's a bit 'voice of the Mysterons' from Captain Scarlett, innit? But he's the ultimate fan turned ultimate pop star, so it's only right that his relationship with his fans should be so.... ill."

While we wait for Ringleaders of the Tormentors, Morrissey's public appearances will doubtless be just as rewarding. What did Mark make of Morrissey's fandangos with the press in 2004? "He really pulled out all the stops this time, didn't he? I'd even go so far as to say he teetered almost on the edge of being a media whore, at least by his own Dietrichean standards. But he was saved ultimately by his own... difficult personality. His performance on the Jonathan Ross show reminded us why he could never become a regular on TV couches. He's just too prickly. It plays havoc with the upholstery." Jonathan Ross loves to play with gender identity, camping about with his Oscar Wilde hairdo and telling everyone to be 'metrosexual' - a term Mark coined in the early 90s. It was quite a relief, after the 'difficult' vegetarian questions, that Ross didn't start waffling on about sexuality. Was Mark relieved too? "Yes, very. I suspect that if Jonno had used the 'M' word Moz would have spontaneously combusted. I doubt Moz would allow himself to be categorised as anything other than a Mozzasexual. Ross is definitely metrosexual, but probably more specifically Bowiesexual, which Moz probably also was for a while in his youth. Because of his age, Ross' metrosexuality is the kind that took its cues from the dandyish styles of 1970s pop music. If he were a more modern metrosexual, the product of Gillette advertising rather than glitter paint and unisex hair salons, he would go to the gym. Which clearly he doesn't."

So, Mark, what's your favourite 'Moz myth'? "That he lives in California. I'll bet he's really living with his Mum in Cheshire." Does Morrissey have a 'Christ-complex'? "I think Christ has a Moz-complex." Poor chap. If Mark went out on the tiles with Morrissey, where would you go? "Portsmouth. During Fleet Week. I'd make sure he wore my 'kiss-me-quick' hat." In the equally unlikely event that Morrissey took the same slimy root as Jack White from The White Stripes, who's lowered himself to promoting Coca-Cola, what would Morrissey advertise? Yorkshire Tea, perhaps? "Yes, I can see the ad now: him and Alan Bennett in Bridlington eating hot buttered crumpets and drinking tea, pinkies erect. In the rain."

Mark wrote Saint Morrissey before his resurrection in 2004 with You Are The Quarry. Would he write an epilogue in a new edition of the book? "I might not have written St Moz if the resurrection had happened earlier. It's not a reflection on his new work, but rather a reflection on my jealousy as a life-long Moz fan/sufferer. Now that he's achieved something resembling global fame, my 'relationship' with him doesn't feel quite so special - or claustrophobic. But these are not special times. This is the 21st Century, after all. It's a minor miracle that there's someone like Morrissey around at all."