Now, for the first time, he's seeing that there really is a way out of this, and it's all so simple. You don't have to run away. You just meet somebody special and step sideways into a parallel universe.

If I stop working and publishing, and TV, and film and all that, I would be dead within a couple of weeks. I don't really have that kind of off-switch.

It's hard to maintain both smack and crack habbits and remember to keep up mobile-phone payments.

I think [Ecstasy] was a really good stab. It wasn't my strongest book or my strongest material, but they wanted to make a kinda "rave culture" movie.

When you look at the whole explosion of the Internet, the decline of print journalism, there are all of these plus-or-minus ramifications, and you have to work it out. The great thing about books is that you have a tactile thing that's there. You can download this or download that, but how long do you want to be staring at a screen for the rest of your life? You've got to have some kind of proper interface for people that's not about the screen.

It was around the summer of 1982 when the drug problem really impacted. It became a lifestyle rather than a recreation. When you start lying and stealing, you cannot con yourself you're in control any more.

I can see myself wanting to write a historical novel - you don't need to worry about references to reality TV or pop music, you can just get on with the basics of story and character.