They're back: Simon, right, with fellow popsters Warren Cuccurullo (left) and Nick Rhodes

Simon Le Bon graced my bedroom walls for more years than I care to remember. He jostled for space alongside Sheena Easton and Bucks Fizz and, for a long time, I was convinced that I was the girl for him.

Then he married the extremely beautiful model Yasmin Parvaneh, from Oxford, and I conceded that probably the best girl had won.

Fifteen years on and now happily married myself, I am able to speak his name with just a slight pang of what might have been. It's just as well really because I finally got the chance to speak to my hero at length.

But it wasn't the kind of conversation that a lovestruck teeny bopper might have had with her idol. This was work and I was grateful that Simon had spared me half an hour out of his hectic schedule to bring us up-to-date with his singing career.

Next month Simon will embark upon a UK tour with the remaining members of Duran Duran, Nick Rhodes and Warren Cuccurullo.

But this is not a nostalgiac trip down memory lane, the Pop Trash Tour will feature some legendary hits including Notorious and Rio my personal favourite as well as some funky new material. The band has a large Oxford following and Simon and his wife, whom he calls Yazzie, are regular visitors to the city.

They wed in a secret ceremony at Oxford's register office in 1985, when it was based above the city centre Sainsbury's superstore, and they often return to visit Yasmin's parents Pat and Iradj, who still live in Banbury Road.

Last week Simon, the band's lead vocalist, celebrated his 42nd birthday at an event organised by the National Blood Transfusion Service at the Kings' Arms Hotel, in Woodstock.

His father, John, who celebrates his birthday on the same day, went along with Yasmin and her parents and Simon performed his own version of Back in the USSR. There's nothing Simon enjoys more than playing live.

He is looking forward to the Pop Trash Tour hitting the road but says over the past decade he and the band haven't been off the road for longer than eight months.

Earlier this year the band toured America and last year they went on a winter tour across the UK. Simon is passionate about his work and his love for what he does has not faded. His name might not appear in the tabloids as often as it used to but he hasn't disappeared from the music scene or faded into his supermodel wife's shadow.

"This is not a nostalgia tour. People don't just want to hear the old favourites but we continue to write our own music as well and so people have a chance to hear the best of the old and new.

"If there were awards for old geezers in bands then I think we would win it," he says.

But despite such tongue-in-cheek claims, Simon is not arrogant or self-obsessed. He simply knows that he and the band are good at what they do and understands that he has a responsibility to his fans.

"We are growing all the time. In these days of computer generated music and Internet music I think it's even more important that we appear live. Because we are able to perform live it makes things a whole lot better and we enjoy it far more because we get the immediate feedback which is so important.

"I love appearing on stage to me that's what it's all about. You just forget everything and throw yourself into it," he says.

Simon's career has taken him all over the world and he regularly appears overseas. But he thrives on the high-pressured lifestyle and says that the music industry is the only one he could survive in, because it allows him to shun convention and does not tie him to a desk from nine to five.

"I am not particularly good at normal life, fitting in or being conventional. I would not be very good at holding down a conventional office job and because of that I have a great sympathy with homeless people.

"I can identify with them because of the difficulty they have fitting in and towing the line."

Simon might like to portray himself as a rebel but he is really a doting dad who loves family life.

He has three daughters Amber, 11, Saffron, ten and Tallulah, six and his 15-year marriage to Yasmin is a rare example of a showbusiness union that has successfully and enviously stood the test of fame and time.

"The family come with me on tour quite a bit, although we're not like those hippy families from the Sixties and Seventies who were always on the road.

"Inevitably I never see enough of them and I miss them when I'm away, but having said that, I even miss them when I'm at home and they go to spend the night at their friends' house.

"We have been living in Putney, London, for a long time now, so the locals are pretty used to seeing us and don't bother us at all.

"I feel sorry for the Beckhams. They are famous and it's partly their job that they allow themselves to be photographed and in the public eye but they've got a little boy who is nearly as famous as they are." Simon says his own girls are only now beginning to realise just how famous their parents really are. He laughs: "In the summer they watched a TV documentary about the band and were absolutely gob-smacked.

"Amber said she had had no idea how popular we were. They are so proud of it though.

"The other day I was looking through a pile of old clippings and at one point we were in The Sun and The Star almost every day but all that fame thing means nothing when you go on stage. You just put it to one side and just perform."

But he's not really one to blow his own trumpet.

"I suppose I'm sexy in my own little way and when I'm on stage I do feel quite sexy. I'm not frightened of being centre of attention and when we perform live we create a kind of buzz around us."

Even just talking to Simon on the phone creates that buzz, although part of his charm is that he doesn't seem to realise it. He chatters along like a bubbling brook before realising that the time is up and he's got to dash.

He has the grace to thank me for my time and then he's off to his next interview leaving me hungry like the wolf for more.

Duran Duran are on tour between December 9 and 19. The band will play at venues across the country including at Birmingham's NEC (December 14), Wembley Arena (December 17) and Nottingham Arena (December 19).