But in a flash there came across me a great project. The chine which the bridge spanned was full of young fir trees. Their slender tops reached to the level of the footway. 'Would it not' I asked myself 'be possible to leap on to one of them and slip down the pole-like stem, breaking off each tier of branches as one descended, until the fall was broken?' I looked at it. I computed it. I meditated. Meanwhile I climbed over the balustrade. My young pursuers stood wonder-struck at either end of the bridge. To plunge or not to plunge, that was the question! In a second I had plunged, throwing out my arms to embrace the summit of the fir tree. The argument was correct; the data were absolutely wrong. It was three days before I regained consciousness and more than three months before I crawled from my bed. The measured fall was 29 feet on to hard ground. But no doubt the branches helped.

Getting into a tense argument with Russell Crowe during one of the Vanity Fair Oscar parties.

Just thinking about unsafe sex.

I’ve dodged a couple of bullets in dodgy war zones, but I suspect the closest I’ve come to death was a reckless, drunken brush with a waltzer at a student funfair. It nearly chopped me in half.

The realisation that I am not the best version of myself.

As a great man.

To the people who, because of my career, I cannot spend time with. I have to be selfish, unfortunately.

When I lost that 100m final I spiralled. I went quite aggressive. It is an Adam I don't really recognise.

I'm tired, I'm not myself and I'm not enjoying the sport as I have done for the last decade. Some might recognise it as burnout; I just know that over the last few years I haven't had the answers.