Oh, to me not drinking is like being dead, almost. I sit here taking endless journeys down memory lane. It gets boring.

It's not name dropping, but not many people can say, like me, that they spent the day with the likes of Francis Bacon or that boring drunk Dylan Thomas. You don't forget things like that.

Women should have labels on their foreheads saying, 'Government Health Warning: women can seriously damage your brains, genitals, current account, confidence, razor blades, and good standing among your friends'.

They smoke cigarettes professionally. The smoke is inhaled very sharply and the teeth are bared.Then the head turns to give you a profile and the smoke is exhaled slowly and deliberately and the grey jet stream becomes a beautiful blue cloud of smoke.What are they trying to tell us?

But you've got to have money for comfort, which obviously doesn't matter as much when you're young, but even so. I always like to bloody eat well and be warm. Have a drink when I want it.

When I was a boy, I naively thought that this thing called happiness would be something I would wake up to find every day once I could smoke, drink and fornicate.

In most betting shops you will see three windows marked 'Bet Here', but only one window with the legend 'Pay Out'.