However, around the age of 16, I discovered smoking and alcohol, setting off a downward spiral in my life. My involvement with drugs didn't do me any favors, and now, at 32, my activities include mowing down pedestrians, hijacking ambulances and ice cream vans, engaging in shootouts with the police, assaulting vagrants and paramedics, and receiving unconventional lessons in dark alleys from dubious women. The Tories might attribute it to the gateway theory, and tabloids may blame computer games – for once, they might be right.