EDDI Reader is a real sweetheart. Well, she would be, wouldn't he, with all the candy floss she is seen eating on the cover of her delicious new album, Candyfloss and Medicine. But, seriously folks, this woman is a delight, the kind of soul soothing, pose free rock star who chats in as casual a fashion as a friend who has just come back from her summer holidays. She's also consistent. Once upon a time she was a member of Fairground Attraction; now she obviously finds herself drawn to the sweetest attraction in any fairground candy floss and likes to be photographed in such surroundings. So what's this all about, Eddi? Are you still a child at heart?

"I try to be. Absolutely," she says, her Glasgow accent as heady as a large glass of Scotch whiskey. "And, though I'd probably have to go into some past life regression to find out what it's all about, I've always liked fairgrounds, especially the lights. There's some hidden memory and every time I see them I feel safe, all excited. And it does make me feel child like."

Okay, let's try a little regressing into Eddi's past. Maybe she associates fairgrounds with her introduction to pop, a phenomenon that certainly defined working class life in Ireland in the past.

And, one assumes, in Scotland.

"Aye, maybe that is part of it," she says, "because all the things I remember about fairgrounds are colourful and new. We weren't allowed go discoing until we were 16, so years before that I probably did hear Slade for the first time while we were in the swing boats, and all that. And, even now, I still see all of humanity at the fair ground. Guys being macho, all the Ids coming out, the wee children we all are. More and more, as I get older, I am trying desperately to stay in touch with the child in my self, and the 17 year old in other adults I meet to bring back some innocence into our lives."

This is precisely what Eddie achieves in her new album's opening track, Glasgow Star, though the point of celebration is probably more the teenager in her soul, rather than the child. Here, she sings, in an unfettered manner, of busking "in Buchanan Street all day", sitting "on the last bus home" and thinking, "come here and shut your bloody mouth an kiss us", in relation to Brian, who, unfortunately, "has a thing for the conductress." The song also is propelled along by a lilting penny whistle and a lively fiddle, reflecting Eddi's Celtic base.

"I like lots of space, in music, to dance about, if I need to, like a kid in a big playpen," she explains.

"But that song also is about breaking free of restrictions because, when I was a kid, I was in the Catholic school and my best mate was in the Protestant school. So. I wasn't allowed to go to Sunday school and that break my heart because there was so much couldn't be part of. And I certainly got enough kickin' about because I was Catholic, in our council estate, which was predominantly Protestant.

"I remember thinking when I get across that street, I'll be out of sight of my mother's house and there'd usually be five guys waiting and they'd ask, which one are you, what side are you on? I used to say Jewish, but that only worked once! Yet all they really wanted, obviously, was to take my dress off, no matter what religion I was!"

As a consequence of this kind of tension in her childhood, Eddi admits she feels "not quite sure" about which side she now belongs to in terms of class, race, religion.

I was in that environment till I was 18, when I came to London to court the music industry," she recalls. Then I really realised that the English are different from us Scottish. I even saw the poor folk as being a class above me, which probably has something to do with the going there with cap in hand thing, and the fact that they live nearer the Queen! At least, that seems to be what they think. The Welsh can deal with that. They just shut their doors and stay away from it all. But we have to go down to London to earn a living. And the fact that I went down to husk, with the hope of earning lots of money and then came back, probably made things worse.

"But I really did, at the time, think everyone in London had tea in the afternoon and tucked their pinkie in the air, which is far from how I was raised! We didn't get a proper tea cup for ages. In fact, I'd no experience of middle class activity until I came to London and then I really was inhibited, thinking, every lassie is a princess', and that made me feel very envious, wee and insignificant."

HAPPILY, Eddi left behind a lot of these needlessly limiting inhibitions after she became part of Fairground Attraction. Nevertheless, she still encounters racism. "Folks still come up and go, och, aye, what's it like to be Scottish and I just reply, I don't know. But I do know what it's like to be standing beside a racist bastard! But, again, that's probably just them trying to chat you up, so you cannae be too hard on them," she says, laughing.

This, of course, brings us back to Reader's seemingly deeply rooted, life long desire to just say to men, "shut up and kiss us". So, like many women these days, does Eddi secretly believe that all men are dumb jerks and should be taken out of their wrappers only when you want to smear your lipstick? Can one detect a trace of romantic disillusionment, or defensiveness, in her descript ion of the song Rebel Angel as "representing that passionate feeling of falling in love, that lasts five minutes."

"They're not all jerks, there are a lot of kind guys out there," she responds. "But, again, at this stage of my life I really am only interested in the kind of man who is not afraid to be a child with me, to pull back from a lot of the crap that adults get tangled up in, like ego games, self-evasion. And a lot of women I know are like that. But although, of course, I've been burned, I've not given up yet."

On the contrary Semi Precious the most perfect song from her new album, proves not only that Eddi hasn't "given up", but still pursues the goal of ideal love with supreme hope and an open, poetic sensibility, despite the presence of telling lines such as "why do those who love the most, lose the most?" But is she really that hopeful, or is this just a song?

"Of course I'm hopeful," she exclaims. "We all hope Santa's still alive and is going to take us by the hand into this wonderful Wizard of Oz land. And that can happen, in love, though the way to do this is rooted a lot more in reality than in the kind of myths we're fed early in life. We're certainly fed a lot of romantic imagery in Catholicism, as in searching for the ideal man, whether you see that as Jesus, or not.

"The song, Candyfloss, is absolutely about being fooled by romantic idealism, falling in love, say, when you're only 17, getting married, then realising you never really saw, or knew, the person you got married to. Then you wake up one morning and say who the f... k is this, in my bed? Ten million of us have done that."

Does Eddi Reader also suspect that millions of people rush into marriage too young and probably into many relationships because they are moving mindlessly from one set of parents to the "family" they hope to find in the arms of a lover?

"Definitely I'm just sorry I didn't realise that earlier," she concludes, sagely. "Being a grownup is realising what the child in you wants and sorting that out for yourself, rather than expecting someone else to deliver it. It's not being a baby, hopping into some thing, hoping you'll be safe. So the real answer is to be mother, father, lover to yourself, though I know that's easier said than done! But I really have learned that you can have your needs met in lots of ways.

"So, it's not that I'm disillusioned romantically, I'm just turned off the idea that everything can come from one person. For example, many of my needs are met by music. And, no matter what happens in terms of relationships, I hope that continues for the rest of my life. And hopefully somebody else'll get something out of my music too."