The log fire is burning as I'm led into a dimly lit room to be greeted by three men in black.

As they stand up to shake my hand, their faces look vaguely familiar - slightly older, slightly rounder, perhaps, but they still with a twinkle in their eyes. There no mistaking - it's the wild boys of 80s pop, Duran Duran.

These days, Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes and Warren Cuccurullo make up what remains of the group (the trio of Taylors having fled long ago) and they appear to be on fine form.

The old New Romantics have just released their second greatest hits album, and are getting ready for a national  tour.

But the band are all keen to point out what they see as  an important difference between them and the other 80s acts currently re-appearing on the pop scene, such as Culture Club.

According to the lads, they've never been away.

Rhodes, now 36, says: "I love Blondie. They were a very potent force in the 80s, like us, and I think it would be unnatural to have any revival without Blondie or Duran Duran... or even Howard Jones.

"I think what separates us from all the other groups is that we didn't really stop. Sure, things changed, but we've been making music for 18 years now, so we've got  a huge catalogue to choose from.

"I was surprised to hear that M People have a greatest hits album out. That's five years and three albums! I'd like to see a greatest misses album - that's all those ones that should have been hits."

Le Bon, 40, chips in: "Culture Club have one too. With all due respect what are they going to put on it? They had Karma Chameleon and... perhaps it should be an EP?"

The era that produced Duran Duran was one which was as much to do with what you wore as what you sounded like - Spandau Ballet, Culture Club, Adam Ant and ABC - everything had to be big: big hair, big shoulders and big trousers.

The five piece Duran Duran arrived on the scene in 1981 with Planet Earth, followed up by their first top five hit Girls on Film, complete with risque video featuring the obligatory nude women.

After this, their pop career took off big time. While other foppish bands fell by the wayside, the Durans' success continued. Two albums quickly followed their self-titled debut, bringing hits like Hungry Like The Wolf and Say A Prayer.

And in March 1983 they did something which, although commonplace today, was a rare achievement then. The single Is There Something I Should Know was the only record that year to enter the Top 40 straight in at number one.

There was no stopping them - they also became the ultimate video band. Sailing on the Indian Ocean, running  up the Eiffel Tower or seeing Le Bon being spun within an inch of his life on the end of a giant windmill sail; nothing was too grand.

"I think time has been very kind to a lot of our songs...not so much the hairdos," Le Bon wryly.

"It's funny. The most expensive videos to make don't look like they are expensive, apart from Wild Boys, which we had to pay for in subscriptions."

"When we went to Sri Lanka it was all very exciting, as it was the first time we had been to the East. It was a great band outing, just like a school trip, but it takes three weeks and you end up going to the other side of the planet. It was fantastic."

The group has mixed memories about one other particular video for their 1989 number nine hit, All She Wants Is. "We were hardly in the video. It was mainly dummies wearing death masks. We went to somewhere south of the river Thames to have them made and it was like going to 10 Rillington Place.

"The house had a really weird vibe and a funny smell I just thought bodies were going to appear from the plaster."

Rhodes recalls: "They did a very good job of painting the masks and after we had finished filming the three heads got delivered to our office. The secretary opened up the boxes and screamed... because it was our three heads inside."

"But the scariest thing for me about the video was thinking what the press might say: 'Duran Duran have replaced themselves with a load of dummies. What's the difference?'," jokes Le Bon

There is no doubt the group have some classic pop songs in their back catalogue. In fact they seem to have improved with age - their two 1993 hits Ordinary World and Come Undone are cases in point.

But what happened on the day when the world didn't want to know any more? "We were labelled a girls' band from the start and this stopped a lot of guys coming to our concerts, but it also meant we had fantastic looking audience," recalls Rhodes.

"Somebody who considered themselves to be a serious rock journalist was not going to write about Duran Duran,                    despite the fact that three months earlier they'd been hanging out in the clubs with us.

"At the time we took criticism very personally but then you just develop a thick skin. A lot of the music press has got very little to do with music - it's more to do with fashion.

"It's to do with what THEY like this week. 'Build 'em up, then dump them' seems to be the motto."

The band are determined to regain those all-conquering days. After the tour, they are finishing off new material and hoping to have a new album out next year.

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