Sting looks like he hasn't slept for a week. His face carries the glazed expression of someone who's not only burnt the candle at both ends but had a good attempt at attacking the centre.He's ushered onto a podium, with the other six members of his new band - currently in the middle of a seven day session of dates at the Theatre Mogador, Paris - their European debut...

Sting, lead singer of The Police, talks to Tony Wragg... Sting, it has been more than two years since the last Police album, 'Synchronicity'. You are now touring the world for seven months as a solo performer. Were you at any stage apprehensive about going it alone...?

Hampstead, North London. Chez Sting. Across the lane is where Charles de Gaulle lived during the Nazi occupation of France. Two centuries ago this and the neighbouring house were joined as a pub called the Three Pigeons, and three decades ago Tamara Karsavina, the Diaghilev prima ballerina, trod these creaky floorboards. The current householder, planning a move across Hampstead Heath to the equally artsy and venerable Highgate, now peers across the room at his daughter with a wry grin and the barest edge of pique. "Give me a kiss," he says in the age-old paternal lilt. "Hey, give me a kiss - no...?"

Stingtime in Paris - the Polce Chief sets himself free: It's ironic, the Police should be taking this sabbatical, or whatever it is, straight after making the best music of their career. I'd take side two of 'Synchronicity' ('Every Breath You Take', 'King Of Pain' etc) over anything else you did. "Yes, I would too. But the choice was, do we keep repeating that formula, become like The Rolling Stones? Or do we allow ourselves the time and space to think of something new? There is no plan whatever for the Police to work again. Nor is there a reason to say we've broken up..."

It's the real Sting - He's back, dreaming of turtles, forming bands, having babies, searching for the Yeti and trying to improve East/West relations. Sting looks like he hasn't slept for a week. His face carries the glazed expression of someone who's not only burnt the candle at both ends but had a good attempt at attacking the centre. He's ushered onto a podium, with the other six members of his new band - currently in the middle of a seven day session of dates at the Theatre Mogador, Paris - their European debut...

Paris in the Springtime - Have the Police split? After two nights in the maternity wards can Sting stand the paparazzi grilling? Hugh Fielder muscles in on the Fleet Street Party. "I haven't left the Police. The Police achieved everything we set out to do a hundred times over. I'm just exploring different areas with other musicians. And I'm having a ball..."

On a hot, cloudless Friday afternoon, a curious affair is being enacted on the top floor of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. In an end room commandeered from the cafeteria, hacks from all over Europe - of whom only the 25-strong British contingent is distinguished by its absence - are taking their seats facing an empty podium. This is performed to background music provided by Mr Sting, the pop star, whose new solo album is being featured. It is Sting, together with his four-month-old group, who will shortly appear on the podium...

'No victim of rock' - Sting finds success in acting career. "I was awake all night, worrying about everything from A to Z," says Sting, 33, his famous blond hair slicked back and tinted the color of tea. "I have a difficult scene with Meryl today. She shoots me..."

Police man's Peake - 'Weird and wonderful' is how superstar Sting describes the novels of Mervyn Peake. The cult writer's most famous fan plays the lead role in Radio 4's dramatisation of 'Titus Groan' and 'Gormenghast' Sting - the multimillionaire superstar - has, a horse called Steerpike. It's an unusual name but one that clearly has great significance for Sting because he has also given it to his pet dog and one of his business companies...

Fresh from conquering the world the 'Synchronicity' way, Sting, Stewart and Andy answer some hard questions about the recent past and near future. David Keeps handles the bright lights and rubber hoses. Policeman Stewart Copeland comes bounding into the A&M Records interview room, frighteningly larger than life. "Where's the other blond bombshell?" he asks Andy Summers...

The wind is gusting over 50 miles an hour, slamming torrential rain against the crusty, glistening stone of the medieval castle. The night is lit by a blazing bank of lights - 196 650-watt lamps - mounted in a giant steel frame that dangles from a cherry picker 100 yards from the Chateau des Cordes in Orcival in France's Massif Central. This "Wendy Light" rig, one of only three known to exist, looms over the chateau as director Franc Roddam's 1,100-amp moon. Until now the night had been gorgeously serene and clear, with a shiny sliver of real moon above, tiny in the starry heavens beyond the ferocious manufactured maelstrom. Roddam, in a long slicker and hat, yells "CUT." Then, another take. Cameras roll: A giant propeller in a square steel cage again whips up the "rain," which is shooting from three 20-foot-high tripods near the castle entrance...

Alone at the top - The Police took a solitary road to success in 1983. This, one imagines is gravy time for the members of the Police - time to loll about the mansion examining the newly acquired bric-a-brac, to drop by the occasional London soiree and be greeted like a foreign head of state, and yes, even to pick up the instrument now and then and mull over that solo project. Time indeed to enjoy their considerable accomplishments in 1983: millions in tour revenues and sales of their fifth LP 'Synchronicity', and the almost unquestioned status as rock & roll's best-loved active band...

The Police cop an attitude: A little over five years ago, the last week in 1978 to be precise, I received a phone call from the editor of a local newspaper for which I was writing. "Go and interview the Police," he said. "Which precinct," I asked, having no idea what he was babbling about. "No, dummy," he continued. "The Police. They're a new British band. And they're not at any police station, they're at CBGB's..."

In 1977, Sting (aka Gordon Sumner), tenor sax-like jazz vocalist and bassist with a faltering British band called Last Exit, quit that gig to become part of a London-based rock quartet called the Police. The group had recently been founded by drummer Stewart Copeland, third son of an ex-CIA agent. Soon afterward, Corsican rhythm guitarist Henry Padovani was fired and the Police became a threesome, with classically trained Andy Summers, late of Eric Burden's Animals and the Soft Machine, on lead guitar. With a loan of 800 pounds they recorded and pressed their own record, a single called 'Fall Out'. It would eventually sell 70,000 copies...

Princes of the City. There's nothing like an American stadium show to make you feel small and alone. As one of 17,000 participants in at the Police's Atlanta show, in the Omni Arena, I drift around the higher blocks of the auditorium. With the precisely vigorous gestures that typify an American crowd, the audience is gorging itself on the bright flood of sound from the stage and the squishy barrels of popcorn and the meek frothy beer and the florid stench of an occasional reefer...