When I was fifteen I got a Saturday job in a butcher shop. I needed extra money for clothes and records and stuff that makes life bearable. Nothing could be as ugly as chopping meat. For twelve months all I smelt was blood. Even when I was nowhere near the fuckin’ shop I smelt of blood. The bloke I worked for was an arse. I had to wear green nylon trousers and a green checked dickie bow. There was no amity or fun. Nan thought being a butcher was a good trade: ‘You never see a skinny butcher.’ (Yeah, but who wants to be fat?) She thought I should suck up to the arse that was my boss so he’d take me on full-time after my GCSEs. Mum didn’t disagree,

But I do believe in myself, except when I don’t. I do when I’m up there on stage and women are flinging their bras and morals at me. Then I know I’m a god. Trick is, not to think too carefully about exactly what sort of god I might be because then you stop believing in yourself and it’s possible you might drown in your own vomit (the default end for a rock star).

When I think back about how I got here, I am not surprised. People say, ‘A lad from Hull, here with all of this! Who’d have thought?’ They say that all the time and they are surprised. But I tell you who’d have thought. I’d have thought. The wall-to-wall open legs, the millions in the bank, the swimming-pool that I could fill with champagne if I wanted to, this is my proper place in life. The two-up-two-down terrace in Hull was the mistake; that was the angels’ clerical error. I should never have been dropped off there among all that disappointment. In our house there were just two states of existence, both underpinned by a solid sense of disappointment (my mother’s – never too happy to be married, heartbroken after my father pissed off). The two states of existence were basically TV On, TV Off.

TV On was the dominant state; it ran from about 7 a.m. all the way through to 1 a.m. the next day (and the