I think I actually wrote it in one of my poems is that my decline has been the making of me - I forget how I put it. Yeah, simply more reflective. I haven't got the excuse of moving forward just on impulse anymore, which I did, I think, for a long, long time.

To have the courage to fail.

The more you face shame and stare it in the eyes and talk about it, the less potent it is.

Worry about the things you can control and don’t worry about the things you can’t.

Impulsivity. We end up in strange places, like right now – I am in the Middle East.

We’re not really allowed to cry where I’m from. I can only cry in summer, at the height of hay fever.

I bought a BMW 7 series and my best mate said: “I don’t think you should buy this, bro, it’s too cheap.” And I said: “Let’s live the dream” and put my foot down hard on the accelerator and the bottom of the engine and the gearbox blew out.

Turning my life around. Seeing the level of criminality I was involved with, and coming to the realisation that it was not the life that I should be leading.

To my cousin P, who was one of my best mates growing up. We lost him when we were in our 20s and, before he passed away, I was so busy with this stupid thing called life and a brand new kid. He called me and said: “Bro, I’m not feeling right.” And I said: “Bro, you’ve never been feeling right.” And it always sits on my head that if me or somebody else had been paying more attention maybe things would have worked out different. He had extremely rare bowel cancer and died five weeks later at 27.

Leafleting for a window company when I was 12. I remember putting them through letterboxes thinking: I’m going to sell drugs, because this is rubbish.