I've heard it said I must be gutted to have been brought up in a place like Peckham. Rubbish.

I never once didn't accept responsibility for that drug test. I've always accepted full responsibility - I should have gone to the test, but I genuinely forgot. My excuse was a simple excuse, and people are still picking on it and saying, 'That's bollocks', but I'm sorry, that's the truth, that's what happened. I forgot.

When I'd go out on a date with a girl, I used to know within the first hour whether she was good for me. [The interviewer asks how he knew.] Well, you might ask, 'What do you want to do?' And if she sat there looking pretty and said, 'Ah, I don't know', it was not a good start. I liked it if they were driven or wanted to do something on their own.

I used to read every, well, most nights. I think reading helps me in terms of relaxing. It helps me to get my mind off the game a little bit more and it helps me to be a little bit more focused.

[on his late wife] When we started going out, I said, 'If we moved in together, would you stop working?' And she said, 'Are you crazy? I'd be bored'. I admire stuff like that. I wouldn't have any respect for someone who was going with somebody because he was successful.

He [Joe Cole] has always been a slippery little git!

[Describing a night out he was invited to by Jamie Redknapp at the age of 17] People were buying the players drink after drink and there were birds crawling all over them. Jamie's a good-looking lad, of course, but I soon learned that if you're a footballer it doesn't matter how pig-ugly you are, you will always get attention from the fittest birds. Crazy, innit? The world we live in is mad because . . . I'll be honest with you, if I saw an ugly bird and she was a celebrity with loads of money, she wouldn't attract me at all. It's true, but some people are different, some people say, 'Yeah, I don't fancy him, but I'll sacrifice his looks if he is bringing all of the other stuff'. I don't understand that mentality. I think you've got issues if you're doing that kind of thing, but a lot of people are.

I've heard people say it looks as if I don't care and I've certainly read that, but the way I play is natural. I don't think I can change it. I know I'm working as hard as the next man, even if it doesn't always look that way.

It doesn't matter whether you're a senior or not, if something needs saying to a colleague it will be said.

Our lives are quite boring. I spend a lot of time watching Coronation Street and Eastenders.

Footballers are creatures of habit and for as long as I can remember at United, it was a ritual that we had low-fat chips the night before a game. We loved our chips, but [manager David] Moyes comes in and, after his first week, he says we can't have chips anymore.

People have an opinion of me from what they read in the papers and the image painted by the media, and I probably haven't helped myself. But my mates and the people close to me know what I'm really like. I'm not trying to paint this picture of a do-goody who never does anything wrong; I've made mistakes and have done things I would change . . . The stuff in Ayia Napa, the drug test - I would like to change that, but these things happen for a reason to help you learn and appreciate where you are in life. One of the hardest things for me about becoming a footballer was accepting that I had to be responsible for my actions, that I have a responsibility to people and to young kids. That's hard to grasp when you're just a kid yourself. For Michael Owen it was easy, his life was . . . I wouldn't say simple, but he was quite a mature 18-year-old and he dealt with the bright lights admirably. I was an outgoing kind of child, willing to see things for myself and to get burnt. And I have been burnt, but there's a lot that I wouldn't change as well because, like I've said, I have seen a lot with my own eyes and learned.