To my parents for all the mess-ups. There have been times when I’ve been going through something and I’ve thought, God, I’m so glad my mum and dad are dead, because they don’t have to go through it with me.

Anyone I slept with before the age of 27, because I was a selfish, cold-ass bitch.

Everybody, now and before, who was fleeing for their lives and wasn’t allowed into our country.

Any fashion designer whose clothes on me must have made them weep.

My creative freedom. I was the creative director of a large fashion brand when I packed it all in to pursue my writing.

My mother and my brother would still be alive. So much of my life has been coping with the grief of losing them.

The summer of 1997. My husband, who is an American, gave up everything to come and live with me in Edinburgh when we were students, and we were so skint but we had so much fun.

When I was about 18, I worked on the chicken counter in a large supermarket, and every morning I had to pierce 64 birds on to industrial skewers to load up the rotisserie. That was very grim.

At a fashion show after-party in New York in 2004, my friend dared me to push her into the pool. I did, and you’ve never heard laughter die so quickly.

People who can’t hear other points of view. Absolute certainty always scares me a little.