Before I was DPP, I did a lot of work trying to get rid of the death penalty in various countries, and one was Malawi. We’d been in court in Zomba and had to get a plane in Lilongwe, about 200 miles away. We got a local taxi: the guy changed his wheels for the journey because the car wasn’t roadworthy and then hurtled at speed, mostly on the wrong side of the road. I’ve never been so terrified.

Last Christmas I was clipped by a train. Mum was dying so my head was elsewhere. I was walking home and had to cross one of those crossings that say, “Stop, look and listen.” I didn’t do any of those things, and I had my headphones in so I couldn’t even hear the train. It clipped my left elbow.

Today is a pretty important day. It was August 15th, 2007, when I was told I likely had "three to six months of good health left." Today is six months from that day. Just to prove I'm still alive, here I am, holding today's New York Times! I rode my bike today; the cumulative effects of the chemotherapy are hurting my stamina some, but I bet I can still run a quarter mile faster than most Americans. The doctors weren't wrong; they always said that if the palliative chemo worked, I'd buy more time, but that it was a long shot. And the doctors have done a brilliant job of tweaking my regimen to help my odds. How much longer this will work is hard to know, but I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left, no matter how many or how few of them I get.

My sister saved me from drowning. I shouted at her because she pulled me out of the pool and hurt my arm.

The 12 years I spent in receivership. That was me being a dick. I lost the court case when I wanted to sack my management and had to pay them £120,000. I said, “I am not paying you, because I should have won.”

One Nation Under a Groove, by Funkadelic.

In 1975, I watched the film Stardust, and Adam Faith said, “I supply the birds, the pills and the pot.” And I thought, “I want that.”

When I was 15 and starting my first job as a messenger boy at the post office, delivering telegrams.