I live in a perpetual present. I don't look back and I don't look forward. I just live from week to week.

I want to look beyond the legends, to find the real story of Scotland. And it's every bit as thrilling.

I find it so easy to read qualified commentators who are 180 degrees opposed to each other.

After I graduated from the University of Glasgow, I was a self-employed archaeologist going from dig to dig around Scotland, and it was not well-paid. I was an excavator, not a lecturer as well, so paying rent on a flat was tricky. In the end I decided to retrain as a journalist as I couldn't see a future in it.

My father was a self-employed, commission-only salesman. He sold double-glazing and fitted kitchens, amongst other things. As he never declared himself unemployed, there was never recourse to benefits, so if money was tight, money was tight. It taught me that we were a closed unit, and that we had to be resourceful.

It is security that I crave and money provides security. What is that old line about money? "Some is good, more is better and too much is just right."

I live in a perpetual present. I don't look back and I don't look forward. I just live from week to week.