TOTP: How appropriate is it to dump someone via text message?
Duncan: By text message? That's cold, man! I guess if you really don't like the person and you don't want anything to do with them, then a text is kind of the nastiest thing to do, isn't it? Personally, I think you should make a phonecall at least. If you can't see that person face-to-face, then over the phone is the least you should do, rather than a text message - that's not nice, man! If someone dumped me with a text message, I'd be gutted.
TOTP: What about e-mail - is that any better?
Duncan: Hmm. E-mail's not a lot - well, it's a little bit better because at least you can write a long e-mail and explain your feelings so you can actually read what they're saying, like a letter, but you can't really get that much in a text to explain, so I guess e-mail's better.
TOTP: Yeah: a text would be like 'U R DUMPD.'
Duncan: Yeah, that's not cute.

TOTP: How about getting a friend to do it for you?
Duncan: Well, I used to do that at school. We used to call it 'You're Chucked' rather than dumped. We'd say "you're chucked". We used to do it in a class lesson, we used to have an argument and the girl would be sat opposite at the desk, and you used to just signal [does appropriate gestures] "you're chucked", and that's how you would dump them.
TOTP: That is HARSH.
Duncan: That was harsh. Or you'd get a friend to do it, saying "sorry, he doesn't want to go out with you any more, so you'd better find a new boyfriend!" Y'know, when you're 13, 14, at school, that's the kind of thing you get up to, isn't it? When you get a bit older you realise that that's not cool.

TOTP: What about skywriting?
Duncan: How would you do that?
TOTP: Well, you could either hire a plane with a banner trailing behind it, or you could just release the plane's vapour into the sky so it spells out words.
Duncan: Well, if you've got enough money to release vapour into the sky or send a banner on a plane to tell someone they're dumped, then I think you probably need to be sectioned! Normally, if you're going to spend that money on a girl to tell them that they're dumped, the nicest thing to do is to pay to tell someone that you love them, not that you're finished with them. So I think if it's a question of spending thousands and thousands of pounds on vapour or sending a text message for 10p, I'd go with the text message.

TOTP: What about doing it on Trisha or The Jeremy Kyle Show?
Duncan: [laughs] They have these things, don't they? What's it called - the Jerry Springer stuff, where they go on and let their partner know they're going out with somebody else. I think to do it on a national television show is so degrading and humiliating, and if anybody took me on one of those shows to tell me something like that, I'd just walk off. I wouldn't even entertain it. I think that's pretty low, you're doing it for entertainment purposes, and you're doing it in front of the world, which isn't nice, really. It's pretty harsh.

TOTP: Can you dump somebody in a song? Or perhaps use a song to explain why you dumped somebody?
Duncan: I think that's cool. I think words are really powerful, and if you use your words carefully, it's really important. When I said about e-mailing, I've been e-mailing people in the past where I've had really troublesome things going on in my head and I've wanted to explain, and sometimes you just can't talk to people in a way, so you can sit down and write an e-mail in the same respect as with a song, you can get what you want to say across in a lyric, and that's kind of a bit easier, I guess. It's good for you, because you're getting it out of yourself, getting it down and writing it out on paper, so I think that's kind of cute.
TOTP: What about if the release date gets pushed back? Do you then have to delay breaking up with them?
Duncan: Haha! Yeah!

TOTP: There's a school of thought that says it's a good idea to break up with someone in public because it's neutral ground. Are some places better than others? Is a dinner date a good place, for example?
Duncan: I wouldn't - if you're going to break up with someone... When I broke up with a girlfriend of mine, it was a really emotionally hard day, and due to circumstances it wasn't working, so we had to finish it, and I went to Hampstead Heath to do it. We went and sat under a tree, and it was really nice - we had a really nice afternoon, and just talked a lot, but it was more neutral ground in the sense that there were people around and it wasn't just, like, INTIMATE - it was outside, with trees and everything, and it wasn't an enclosed space. And we both just sat there and had a bit of a cry and went our separate ways and it was a really emotional breakup. But I think when you're in love with somebody and you really love that person, you don't wanna just split up with them over a text message or anything like that, you need to talk about it face-to-face and you need to explain, and it is emotional and it hurts.

TOTP: If you're on a first date with someone and you realise it clearly isn't working out, is it acceptable to break up with someone before the end of the first date?
Duncan: [chuckles] Well you're not really with them yet, are you? If it's a first date. So you can't really split up with somebody if you're not really with them, so I wouldn't say that breaking up at the end of the first date counts, really. You just probably wouldn't ring them again and ask them to go on a second date.

TOTP: How long is an acceptable time between breaking up with someone and going on the rebound?
Duncan: I guess that is up to personal taste. Everybody's different, everybody has different ethics. Some people might break up with someone and think, "I need to go out and meet somebody else", or... my best mate, he's a serial monogamist, so if he breaks up with somebody, he needs to be with somebody within the next few days because he can't be on his own. So he goes from one woman to another, and he's done that as long as I've known him. And he'll be really into someone, and they'll split up, then three days later he's met someone else and he's in LOVE. He just can't handle being on his own. But as I said, everybody's different. For me, if I was really into somebody and we split up, I couldn't go out with anybody for about... months and months and months. It would take me a long time to get over that person.

TOTP: Go on then, tell us about your new single.
Duncan: I've got a new single out called 'Can't Stop A River', which is written by a singer/songwriter called Seal. It's out on the 21st August and it's a really beautiful ballad. It's got a sentiment about it, the lyrics are really beautiful: "It doesn't matter where you are, where you go, or what you do, you can't stop my heart from loving you." I think that's a cute little saying, an expression. We all need to show love to more people, when you look at the news and there's all wars and fighting and stuff going on, it's just like, "hey, let's have a bit of love for the world, for the planet, for each other, be a better place."