They were learning from my music, the ark of the covenant, the sunship of fire.”Nowadays Scratch is of the Christian faith, following his rejection of Rastafari around the time of his trouble at the Ark.”Fully,” he confirms. We needed young boys who want to fight spiritual warfare in the battle of the Armagideon war. He explains how his music comes from outer space, and that he, Captain Lee “Scratch” Perry is “the master of the pounds, shillings and pence, taking over from the US currency department.”I ask him what he recalls about his relationships with the principal figures he recorded at the Ark: Max Romeo, Junior Murvin, the Heptones, Jah Lion?”Well,” he continues, “we were creating a spiritual army to take over from the heads of government, and take over all the money. He turns a pair of tilted, almost whiteless eyes to mine and declares, “England is my country.

Is no longer ruled by the Queen but is ruled by my music and my theocratic government, and ganja Rastafari.” He then gabbles through a litany of conquests and correspondences between parts of the body and elements of the rhythm section; he talks about the importance of children, computers, and the evil power of boredom. He sits up straight on his chair and fiddles occasionally with a video camcorder he has set running at his feet, focussed on the contents of a suitcase from which spills a tangle of wires, papers, fairy lights and Christmas decorations.I ask him how he finds England these days, given that he’s lived in Switzerland for years. He favours clothes and hats adorned with CDs, icons and bits of electronic hardware. On the day we meet in the basement of a record company outpost in Notting Hill, he has on a pair of trainers and crimson athletic tights.

It covers the full range of Perry’s achievement, which is infinitely subtle and characterised by delicate shifts in tone, texture, space, light, shadow and heft.Lee Perry is an inscrutable little man He is in his early sixties but seems entirely spry. The ones you should watch out for, she warns, are the working types “whose social status is important to them”. They are far more likely to “hit their women like crazy”, she says. At this point, she hoists herself on to the bed, revealing a chocolate-bronzed cleavage and a small heart tattooed on one breast She starts to rub moisturiser into her legs. “I just find it extraordinary that the people who are supposedly evil gangsters are actually the most gentle ones.