Praise a stranger with a few nice words and he becomes a stranger that calls you a friend.

On one level, going bust didn't bother me. It was the 80s, and there wasn't the stigma about bankruptcy that you might think. My mates weren't bothered. My dad was in business.. he knew that it happened, too. He loaned me the money to bail me out, and I got a loan from the bank to pay him back.

I've learned to deal with stress much better now, things don't bother me in the way that they once used to.

Every time I sat in a chemistry lesson I thought, what am I doing this for? I don't ever want to be in a job that involves a Bunsen burner.'

Of course I have an ego, but you have to have an ego. You have to be incredibly competitive. I can get competitive at times, way too much, and it becomes a little bit obsessive.

The biggest shock when I lost it all was the realization that so much of my life had been out of my control. When I started to make the money back, I vowed that it would never happen again. I bought things only when I could afford them. There was no big mortgage, no cars on hire purchase. I remember buying a TR6 sports car for £6,000, and funnily enough it gave me more pleasure than the Porsche ever had.

My attitude is, if someone's going to criticize me, tell me to my face.