 Felly gofyn yn ddod, mae'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio yn Llywodraeth. Gŷn nhw, beth yna? Yn mynd i'ch meddwl. First of all, dweud i'n meddwl am y dyfanyddol, mae'n cwestiynau yn mynd i'n ddod. Efallai, mae'n amddangos, ddrygedd. Dyna'n ei gweithio. Felly, mae'n ei gweithio? Great. I just back here, I've been back in the UK kind of since April, kind of just dividing between here and America, kind of more moving towards being here. Work here is kind of just a lot of things on the go and trying to sort all that out and keep abreast of all that. I keep busy. I keep busy, you know, so we're talking about the devil makes work for idle hands, so I've got to keep busy. Otherwise it's like kind of from the too many distractions. First to and Pylton, West Pylton and the Prefabs, and then on to Muir House and the Masonettes. So I kind of grew up in sort of Leith, Pylton, Muir House, mainly Muir House. Good upbringing. Ah it was a good upbringing, it's like because everybody kind of in that local community knew each other because they all came for the same neighbours that we had in the tournaments in Leith, neighbours were in the Prefab in Pylton and again they kind of moved people by streets. So you knew everybody basically and you kind of knew everybody and your parents kind of knew each other and their grandparents knew each other. So it was a kind of very, even though it was dispersed along the history, it still had that kind of very strong community feel to it. And how was schooling and stuff in Edinburgh? Terrible at school, I mean comprehensive schools were kind of in the North Edinburgh and like Kingsley Park, Craig Royston, they were basically there to service the industry that was like Parsons peoples for Anties and United Wire and people kind of basically were factory schools, you know that was the idea that you would get a job in the local factory and then the factories closed down basically so there was no employment in the area and things kind of, you know you could see that the area was starting to decline and just through lack of employment you know. And really you know when I grew up though, when I was growing up in Muir House you never saw drugs at all, nobody's even smoked joints. I mean it was like kind of McEwen's Expo or Tennant's Lager was the strongest drug you could get and maybe a nippa grouth if you're really hardcore. If you had a bit of money. So in school and then when you left, were you a musician at one point? Or trying to be a musician? Yeah I was trying to be a musician, I was fucking terrible. The great thing is I mean I do music now and I really enjoy doing it and we've been more kind of successful now about it but because it's like you don't have to have musicianship skills to do music you just have to kind of be creative basically now but you know I just don't have my brain and my fingers aren't wired correctly for playing a fretboard or a keyboard and I could never master, I went from guitar to bass to trying to play keyboards and all that and I just didn't have the dexterity or the nimblness to do it and something's not connecting up properly here fast enough. Yeah fast enough but also kind of it's just a matter, it's a kind of a comfortableness for the instrument and I think that because I was so obsessed with music and still am I'm kind of if it didn't sound like the people that I really looked up to or it wasn't at that standard, I got very despondent about it but you can't be at that standard, you have to work up to it and I think because when I moved to writing and I didn't really have literary heroes as such there was no reverence on that part, I just was an arrogance I thought I can do better than anybody else. No role model. Yeah because there's not people that I'm really kind of looking up to in the same way there was that I was intimidated by who were brilliant at music. Was that your passion then when you left school to be a musician? Yeah I was obsessed with it and I was like I used to go down to London during the school holidays because my uncle Alec was a train driver and Manage SUV married down there was a nurse and they kind of they moved from Fwllham to Southall so I got sent down there getting on the road for a wee bit so it was great for me because when the punk thing kind of kicked off it was an easy transition for me I could just kind of go down there and I could kind of almost like that. You had a second family you could be looked after and you kind of everybody thought you were kind of sort of living in some horrible squat and I was going back to this very comfortable house and getting kind of cooked sundae roasts and nourishing meals and all that and like show you get in performing that Sam. It was great so I was inducted into London Life in a kind of in quite a risk free way and obviously when I got into it I got into sort of the squat and saying and got into sort of kind of messing around in different bands and all that but it was a very smooth kind of introduction to it for me. So the squat and saying as well what was that like back then? Terrible, terrible. It was like kind of I remember this place in Shepher's Bush kind of right in South Africa road right next to the QPR ground which were there's a big estate in South Africa estate in White City next to it but there was also this the houses were beautiful but they were just dilapidated and I had this place it was like it's like a working class thing about being very fastidious you know that everybody else all the middle class squatters places were like shithole's mines there was this tidy little room everything in order and all nice and kind of fancy and all that you know but it was funny you would go out and you'd make an absolute racket and you'd be playing you'd be playing your crap bands you'd be going out to gigs and you'd be loud as fuck and then when anybody made a noise you're going this is terrible you know this is like what the fuck's going on here a noise in the street or something like that so you're kind of you know that selfish kind of narcissistic thing about youth you can make as much noise as you like but when everybody else does it it's like what the fuck's going on here. So when did you start making your life choices then to get into the life like the screenwriting and did that become habit or by chance that happened? Well it was but you know what it was doing when I realised that the songs I was writing they were actually interesting because they were ballads they were telling stories basically and ballads are just stories set to music and I thought well the music's not working I'm getting the elbow to every band I've ever been in I mean there's one time when I went to one of the record stores on Inverness Street in Camden and I saw this sign and it was like you know you have the little sort of bassist wanted and all that drummer wanted and all that and I saw this I recognised the phone number and there's bassist wanted and I thought that's my fucking mate in the band you know it's like kind of and I'm the bassist so I'm getting sacks from my own band but you know it's like I thought this is terrible so I went round the phone box phoned them up and I sat down and put on an accent and I go oh and I lost his bassist thing and he goes yeah I've got him on my mind he's fucking bassist now but he's shit I'm going to get rid of him you fucking cunt so I just realised that this was going to be a recurrent theme you know I was going to get to a level of kind of expertise but no more after that like you know so that was like that was a kind of eye opener that was never going to have the requisite musicianship skills to do anything in music but now it's interesting though you know you have all the you can do everything from a laptop you have all these software packages you don't need to be a great keyboardist you can just note something out and then sample it and just loop it and the same way you know you've got all these kind of drum patterns and you've got all these kind of bass lines and you know it's like my mate Steve his studio is just pulling machines and he's just absolutely brilliant he can get every sound from every error from all these different sort of synthesisers that he has from all these different times and all that you know so it's like kind of I mean that's really sort of not something broad in my musical education but also kind of allowed me to to be able to write songs with kind of with lyrics and harmonies but have it actually realised musically without being a musician basically so it's an amazing thing it's a bit like when I started writing I mean if I had to write long hand you know like George McKay Brown the old boy in Orkney that won the Booker Prize he used to write everything in ballpoint pen and then he would hand it to the local typist and she would kind of sort of do it out and I thought God I could never write anything long hand I would never be a writer if it wasn't for the technology the technology enable me to be a writer basically What was the first thing you'd ever written? I think it's funny when I was at school I used to write essays like you know you have to write compositions and all that for English and one teacher of Mrs Tate who was fantastic and she was always incredibly encouraging but she goes this is great this is fabulous and when I left school I was working as an apprentice TV mechanic and I was doing my city and girls at college and I kind of ran into her in the street and she said are you still writing and I went what are you talking about why would I be writing you know I've left school you know this is something you do when you're at school and you do it in the English class but it was strange because I was doing this apprenticeship that I didn't really like it and I didn't have any particular aptitude for it but it kind of shamed me it made me feel maybe I should be thinking about doing something like that something creative and it kind of you know so I think the stories that I wrote at school were probably the first things that I did Did she see a talent in you then? Was that why she asked? I think she did yeah she did I've been in touch with her since then she said that you know the stuff that you were writing about was like kind of fun you're writing about all daff wee stories for the scheme basically like you know but they were kind of fun they were obviously sort of they were obviously based on some kind of reality but they were kind of hyper real as well we had that kind of sort of mad crazy mind and all that and when I think back I just used to laugh at the time you know but when I think back in it obviously the genesis of all that is in all that kind of stuff nothing's kind of nothing that you do is wasted and I think that there's clues there's always clues to what you're going to become what you were when you were a kid for your path so all the rejection as well you receive from the bands and stuff that this hasn't yet any time that other that kicked you on and go fuck this I'm going to make some for my life both both I think you have to you kind of I think that I'm quite lucky that I'm kind of quite resilient you know and I think because I grew up in quite a multi sort of a multi household family in a way you know because you go you tub your tea then you go your aunties basically are in the corner and you get another tea there like you know you got your baskets and you get a big fat bastard thinking like but yeah so you kind of got you always felt a lot of love and belonging growing up I remember like Manny Betty used to say to me she used to grab a huddymi and you know in the hallway she goes you're the best and I'm all son you're going to go on and do great things and I would go like you know I think this is great Manny Betty seeing the special talent in me I can't let her down I've got to go for it and then I realised she was not only saying this to every other kid in the family she said it to every fucking kid in the street you know she's a positive motivator that special bond in somebody giving you that motivation in your mind sometimes you go right I don't want to let them down do you know what I mean I always had a lot of affirmation my mum and dad were really always positive and said do what you want pal go for it go for it you know sort of fun and everybody you know I think because I was quite bright and quite sort of fun quite kind of cheeky but kind of trouble but kind of you know I was quite globby and all that and quite articulate so they kind of gave me a lot of leeway and it's like kind of and it's like my mum was always like I every says he's intelligent but his school grades are shite he's left school when they qualifications and you've just indulged him and I'll come good he'll come good at something so it was like it was interesting there wasn't a big kind of paper chasing kind of sort of culture about it but there was a belief that if you were left to your own devices you know whether it was like you find something whether it was like music or kind of fun you know or writing or kind of carpentry or plumbing just let something do what they want to do and just let them continue to do that seeing you were doing your jobs and stuff did you always feel I've got more to give did you always feel that you could shoot for greatness well I always felt that I was looking for something that I wanted to do find your passion yeah I mean it's like kind of what I knew through all the jobs that I was in I never wanted to be doing I never wanted to go I never wanted to work for anybody basically in the sense that I didn't want to go in to work every single morning in a factory or an office I mean sometimes you love to go into a factory or an office because your pals are there and you have a laugh and all that and you do a good bit of work but nobody can want to do that every single day of their life I mean you must think there must be some days that you think fuck it's a Tuesday the sun's out I don't want to be in here I want to do something different and all that and that's kind of I wanted to do something that gave me these kind of choices that I didn't have to do that to live that kind of regimented life and it was important for me to try and find something that I could be more self-directed at it didn't really it would have helped if it had been something creative that I could express myself in some way it didn't have to be it just had to be something that was that was kind of it was just going to give me a bit of autonomy basically Do you struggle being in the same place at one stall at a time? Yeah I do tend to move around a bit and it's not so much a struggle but it's like kind of an enquiring really I just want to see what's around the corner so I've always tried to travel and I think it comes back to to me being allowed to to go down to London for the summer holidays as a kid and to go up to Nair for the summer holidays and spend a lot of time kind of on mowing doing mowing stuff and getting involved in mowing stuff so it's always been I've felt comfortable in doing and I get kind of I do get kind of I mean I like to have a place that I can go and recharge the batteries and all that but I do like to get out and see things and do things as well So how did you start making your money in London? How did you survive? Well I mean a kind of you know a variety of the kind of jobs like working in offices working in building sites working in kitchens and kind of not basically kind of high paid, high status jobs but I remember it was it was long term unemployed and I went into this this place it was kind of it was like the Greater London Council sort of a subdivision of that basically and it was where they you know they were trying to do all this employment regeneration thing and I went I saw this job as this like development officer and I had no qualifications for it at all but I went along and I didn't even know how I got the interview but the guy said that this guy who Morris mentioned his name was he was a really kind of very kind of sort of entrepreneurial kind of sort of guy and he said your application form seemed a bit quirky you know and he was this kind of clinical psychology background and all that it's kind of just a bit done everything and he says I kind of get a gut reaction about people and I'm going to offer you the job right now and I thought this guy is ripping the piss out of me I've got no qualifications, he's a bum he's got all these so he says right and he goes what you have to do is you have to you have to find an office rent an office and then you have to recruit these people as office staff there and then you have to start up these projects and I said well how did I do that I said well you work it out this is the support you have from all these different kind of bodies and agencies and this is the people you talk to within the greater London Enterprise board and all that and I was like fuck what did I do literally what did I do and it was probably one of the best experiences I had because it was very much kind of a diverse women I had to find an office I had to get furniture I had to recruit all these job designations that were sent off to the governments and the great London Enterprise Board the Manpower Services Commission and they'd come back and I thought I'm a fucking punk rocker I'm a waster on the dole I don't fucking do this kind of shit and then suddenly I was this manager and it was such a bizarre thing and I did that for a couple of years and I really sort of enjoyed it and then I moved back to Edinburgh I got a job with the council and I kind of did roughly some more stuff but more about more related to staff training and staff development programmes and I got two rapid promotions basically you know so but again it was like you're kind of ayahuasca guy you know on the surface I had everything kind of sort of lovely big house kind of beautiful wife and sort of well paid job kind of successful on the surface but I was fucking miserable inside because I wasn't doing what I wanted to do you know and I suddenly realised that I was about 28 and I've never felt so old in my life so I felt when I was 28 and I was like oh look 30 is kind of coming up and it's looming and I thought fuck this is the rest of my life this is for the rest of my life so I was kind of saved I think by Asu Taus I started kind of from because I had this heroin experience and I was very gunshier on drugs so I quated the ecstasy to taking heroin and I was just like I remember when Danny Rampling started Shum I remember going down to Shum in London and it was like did you ever see that in basic instinct when Michael Douglas goes into the club and he's got this fucking weird he looks about 100 years old but he's got this weird fucking kind of everybody else is cladding lycra and he's got this like fair isle jumper or something like that and everybody else is like and that's what I felt like there because everybody was off the tits on ecstasy and I was Mr straight and I'm looking around and what the fuck is going on here and I didn't get the music at all you know and I was back up here and my mate Susan we're at this kind of Christmas party and she goes like fuck this we're going to launch a UFO you're going to take a poll and I go no I'm not taking a poll I was a fucking heroin addict I'm not taking pills Were you clean then as well? Yeah I've been clean for years basically How long, when did the heroin addiction take control? The heroin took early 20s basically and it was like it was a kind of it was one of these things it's like I had a couple of good mates and we were kind of we regarded ourselves as these punk rock rebels basically and we were kind of we were obsessed with all that sort of you know like Lurid, the Velvet Underground all this kind of sort of all that kind of music and that kind of sort of and we thought let's try the heroin see how it works out and all that it's that folly I do thing it's kind of when I wrote train spotting it was basically kind of it was a retin sick boy relationship you know neither of these guys would have became junkies if a hunt had been for meeting the other basically in that kind of weird kind of chemistry and I think that I think once you get into that it's like it's difficult I think it's difficult to stay a drug addict if it's not something else that's driving it there has to be something else there has to be some kind of massive depression or anxiety issues or there has to be some kind of trauma trauma or abuse and all that I was thinking myself why am I doing this this is just stupidity that's got out of hand to fulfil a void maybe because it's like again it's part of the thing that I was frustrated I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing what I was supposed to be doing was writing stuff filling my potential feeling that sense of bliss where you're achieving something if you're not really achieving what you want life you tend to slip into the bad habits yeah I think it gives you you know the weird thing about junkies it kind of gives you a little bit of a structure as well you've got a reason to get up and get out of bed and even if it's just just looking for drugs it's still a reason but to me it's like after about after about a year 18 months it's like the last kind of I started to become very noticeable and people around me and it started to become obvious that I was kind of I moved into a totally different set of social relationships like all my old pals are gone and I was like kind of with people that you know some of them are really good people and it was like but it was just this whole different kind of subculture I was in but the people realised the extent of heroin then I think no it was like total innocence abroad more experimental when I first when I first saw kind of brown hair on afghan brown hair and I thought what the fuck is this because we were used to stuff that was kind of we called it china white because it just came from gorgie it was made in the father and smith plant like you know it was you know but we thought what's up to the china white what's this fucking afghan stuff and that but it was just pharmaceutical stuff that we had was very pure so people got addicted very quickly and and yeah but the thing is it's like if you've not got any compelling reason to stay doing drugs like that it's quite a hardcore thing to do I'm thinking like what's going on here you know I've not fucking being touched up by an uncle of Roger by a pedophile priest or kind of or I've not had any depression or anxiety issues or you know significant to speak of why am I fucking doing this I've got to stop doing this now so I did basically you know and you have a couple of false tries you know it's like I think when you start to when you first do it you want to you don't want to stop doing the drug you want to get to a point where you can kind of almost have a clean slate and you can start again and have the ego the ego telling you that you can actually control it this time and all that and then you realise it's fucking nonsense it's the drug that's probably going to control you yeah so so you stop and it's like it's never I've never ever had any desire at all a fair play in respect for that because a lot of people who watch this show a lot of people struggle with addictions themselves and we have relapses when I was trying to change you do they have the relapses and then you slip back but you just with the times you are clean as the times you realise how good your life is then because the problems and issues whatever it is whether you've been abused or whether it's just anything you've got to trigger these things it's still underlying issues and things can happen for a previous life as well and not previously but family members are getting passed down in your DNA there's somebody with addiction issues also there's so many different factors to kick into play and it's people we all make mistakes but for that I was fortunate that I didn't have these kind of there wasn't I was going to say there wasn't anything in my DNA towards addiction but Scottish everybody's fucking DNA I was going to say no more than anybody else is like but yeah I mean I think there's the whole circumstantial thing and I think that in some ways this sounds a really bizarre thing to say but in some ways I'm glad that my addiction was around heroin rather than alcohol because I think with alcohol it's so ubiquitous and mainstream in society you have to walk past a bar you have to walk past adverts for all the time you have all these triggering things but if you really change your social circle you don't really there has to be something kind of compelling that's going to pull you back and the interesting thing for me is it's like I'm not complacent about it but I have had things like bereavements divorces all these things that would make you think fuck I'm just going to it's a reason I'm going to get fucked up but I've never tended to wars doing that I've always thought well that's the last thing I want to do the demons will always arise but the thing is people will say you must be doing well because you're not drinking you're not taking drugs the problems and the fucking pain and the demons are still there but when you're clean you can handle them better you can handle them in a better situation you find solutions instead of problems I think you kind of look for kind of creative solutions I mean if I'm feeling kind of that kind of angsty way that fuck I want to go to the pub but I want to do this I want to do that that's when I start writing that's when I get to work that's when I start to mess around with the music that's the thing that kind of I've got that kind of outlet for them I've found that outlet your medicine basically it's also an expression you have to kind of that kind of thing you have to see it is not it's not so much really a kind of a demon thing that's alien to you it's something that's part of you it just has to be kind of it has to be you can't let it kind of gain dominance in diminishing your whole life and all that you can't become that one dimensional but you have to use that kind of energy and you have to try and find a way to find a creative outlet for it you've got to focus it because when you stop addiction you've got so much free time and you need to keep busy because if you don't the demons are creaking at the end so you must keep busy it's that learned behaviour as well I've got free time in my hands I'm a bit kind of anxious about what's going on I've not got any future, I've not got a job I've not got anything, what can I do your options are really quite limited in a sense you've got that learned behaviour this is what I do in this situation this will take the pain away at least short term how did your family look and then at that time when did they start seeing their effects I think when you're rightful into your mass purse basically it's like that thing that you live in this totally bizarre kind of parallel universe that you think that everything you do is justified because it's such an ego led thing it's such a kind of fun it's such your led so much by your immediate needs you're thinking like I need to get myself sort of I need to get my fucking medicine everything else once that's done I'll sort everything out I'll make it all good again but you'll never make it good again it's like you just don't operate in that way your mind doesn't operate in that way you just slump back full of bliss for a while and then suddenly the cravings all start again you go through the same cycle but you always feel that you can kind of you always feel you can make things up with people you can make it better again but you can't if you're fucking something up really badly you know it's very very difficult to do that and at that time for that one kind of sort of two year kind of destructive period in my life probably cost me quite a lot in terms of friendships and relationships someone will be able to appear in the years other ones I haven't or not to the same extent and another phenomenon is when you see something that you've been through that with that I mean one of my pals one of my best friends that I went through that with and he kind of cleaned up at the same time as me and it was that kind of thing we were frightened to be with each other to be with each other as mates because we just probably wrongly you know we felt that we just triggered each other off again it took us about fucking 20 years just to each other there's so much more on the bridge that we're not actually going to go and get fucked up and look for drugs now it's difficult especially to change because you do need to separate yourself from a lot of people who you've been growing up with for 10, 20, 30 years but people do change and that's the beauty of life and people all make mistakes which is the beauty of life as well but it's how you learn from those mistakes what was the trigger point what was that like bold moment for you to go fuck this I'm going to get clean I'm going to get off the heroin and really change my life I think it was a series and I'm kind of like one of my uncles I missed his funeral I didn't even know he died basically you know because that's how far I've been removed from the kind of whole family and social scene and it kind of dawned on me and I remember kind of going home and all that saying like I think I said to my mum like I should go down and see my uncle Wally and I'll house you down in the bulletin street and I was like oh I died kind of about eight months ago you know that don't you and I was like I didn't actually know I just didn't actually know I was so removed from everything so removed from the network the lines of communication and it partly has to do with me moving about all the time I was in London but it has also to do with the whole scene that I was in and the way that I cut myself off from everybody through being in that scene and that was like I thought fuck you know what am I doing it's like kind of from everybody that you know I'm not really spending time with the people that I want to be spending time with I should be spending time with I'm spending time with people that who you know in some ways are great people but we're not actually doing each other any good we're not helping each other giving each other anything positive we've done all that we're all fucking crazy we're this fucking mad gang but it's like we're not it's all going downhill now it's all kind of bitterness and suspicion and kind of you know there's no real social congress that's meaningful in any way so I've got to get the fuck out of this it's scary because I remember I was a bad gambler, I was a compulsive gambler my dad he'd get leukemia and he was in hospital and I used to miss visits and even when he was coming out that's like that's a terrible thing like a good palamines and bras as well because it's such an invisible thing you can keep something going for so long you can keep something going for so long it's practically probably the one vice I've never had and I'm glad of it so well done you well done you do you think in fact I've got to thank my past because it's now I'm creating everything I feel as if I can identify with a lot of things but I've focused all my energy and this is an addiction for me now but do you think your creative writing would have been as powerful if you never hurt the rock bottom that you went in as well no I mean I don't think so because I think that it's not so much the rock bottom I think it's just having a compulsive obsessive personality basically that I don't believe in addictive personalities because I hate when people say I've got addictive personalities and there are usually people who never do drugs or never do anything they'll do fuck all oh I can't touch you because I've got an addictive personality fuck all but I think there is a compulsive obsessive element that people have and we have in the world that we've created is like this horrible kind of artificial zoo that doesn't really serve our needs you know it's like the kind of fag end of consumer capitalism where we're encouraged just to keep spending and keep buying and keep kind of fun and keep consuming different things and whether it's subliminally whether it's like kind of furniture or kind of paintings or whether it's drugs or alcohol we're encouraged to do this I mean for example if somebody's kind of morbidly obese just eat less basically that's all I need to do I need to cut down the calories but we have to substitute with another product we have to say here's a gym membership here's a diet plan we have to shell out for something else we have to consume in order to make it relevant when it's the consumption or the over consumption or the bar consumption that's caused the problem in the first place so we've created this kind of zoo where we're all made compulsive obsessive basically to a greater or lesser extent and I think that we have to find something we have to find these little spaces of of interest and intrigue and goodness and creativity and art and love that are like these desert islands that you can cling to in this and because there's so many because it's like because we've created this general fucked upness there's always going to be a whole sea of people and voices saying like you should be doing podcast what you're doing these fucking podcasts what you're writing these fucking books for and you know the whole answer to that is exactly what you should be doing is exactly what everybody should be doing you shouldn't be filling your life up with fucking empty shit whether it's drugs or shopping and that's the scary thing about life if you tell somebody your dreams or ambitions because they don't see your vision they speak you out of it and we say earlier we've pitched our ideas, podcasts and documentaries to nearly every channel 18 months ago and everyone knocked it back and says it's not good enough but maybe not yet but we went and did them and we've created them and they became massive so that just goes to show don't take no for an answer fuck off the butter and believe in yourself you don't need these kind of things you don't need these kind of things I don't know if that stems to the addiction issues where you go fuck it and then because when you do realise that you can achieve it and because you've already come over the worst hurdles of your life which is the depths of just lying to everybody in the pain exactly so I know it's fuck off do you know what I mean I'm fucking loving it man I'm sitting across for you as well hearing your story life is good so when you started getting putting the script together and writing for train spotting where did that come about when did you start going I'm going to write this down and put it into something special it was like there was a kind of desperation about it as well I thought like I fucked up in music I'm hitting 30 and I've got to try and find something that I can do that I can write about what would you really want to write about and I was thinking that there's a whole drugs epidemic at Edinburgh that I've been ignored it's like because again it's happening to working class people in peripheral areas so it's deemed not to exist and the city fathers have gone on about fucking Dutch Elm disease they were worried about trees rotten to death they weren't worried about people rotten to death with AIDS and HIV and all that and they were just coming back up to funerals and stuff like that and fuck me this is kind of fun so that was happening in the social landscape basically where I came from and it was also having my own issues that was trying to make sense of why were you fucking taking loads of heroin and why were you kind of fun when you had this bright guy who was going to succeed basically why were you willfully almost fucking this up so I was trying to work out all these questions and it was like to me what the book is about and I didn't really see it at the time but it's not about drug addiction or it's about it's about the and the reason I think it's that that book and that kind of writing stayed so prominent over the years like in the 30 years and it's still it's like a kind of go-to book I think it's because it's about what do people do when there's a world without work and it used to be working class people that faced that the industry of working classes faced that now it's middle class people with the middle class professions being destroyed by technology the Kiva robot is going to destroy the paralegals jobs it's going to destroy medical jobs you've got the the amazon factory now all this stuff you don't need people to do it and it's how you're going to have the driverless cars and all these massive transport jobs and this is the whole thing that nobody's addressing what do we do in a world without work and this is like what working class people faced industry of working class people faced this in the 80s in the Thatcherite era and that question was people talked about that kind of redundancy not just redundancy for my job but that kind of spiritual and emotional redundancy what do we do what the fuck is the purpose of us basically if it's seen as like there's all this I'll get on your bike find more work in a hotel for nothing go and pick fruit or something like that stop mourning now all the people that were writing these typing these articles then are the ones that are going through all the same angst now what's the point of us it kind of is one of these what goes around comes around things it's like this is a big kind of issue we have now what do we do when a world without work and basically we just have to amuse the fuck out ourselves basically we have to do things but we have to kind of either we live in some kind of controlled fascist state where we're kind of we're rationed about a sort of couple of beans kind of every day or something like that we have a kind of bullet we enjoy this potential abundance and just like kind of you know sort of play football all day and kind of make films and videos and sort of kind of read poetry to each other and make love in the fields and all this kind of stuff it's just a days more for you but you know let's have an anarchist utopia instead of fucking fascist dystopia you know if we can't pay wages then we can't make profit and that's the thing it's like I can't believe now when you hear people talking all this punditry this fucking nonsense people talking about the free market and people talking about socialism and all these kind of these things have never existed in the purest form they're both technologically destroyed now they're both technologically obsolete and capitalism and socialism to me they're not this fucking they're not these two opposing forces the twin children of industrialisation and now we're in a post industrial society and there's no traction for these things anymore there's no you know it's like these things are in decline and now it's like kind of the choice is we replace them with an authoritarian anarchy when you have this very small elite people telling everybody else what to do and kind of setting up a big kind of entertainment industry whereby everybody kind of marches kind of like singing and dancing into the gas chamber that's the kind of world they're trying to create or do we kind of utilise all the resources of the world for the common good and do we kind of change our lifestyle do we shelve economic growth do we confront all these kind of scientific climatic issues that we have to in order to survive and have a lot of fun we should be having fun doing all this that's the key I think because there's much more to this that's the key I think because as much as we can talk all this and study and try and become better people the key is to also have fun and laugh don't be too fucking serious don't try and think about the future too much or the past try and concentrate on the present and laugh this is why these podcasts are so great for people to hear people to hear your story and for people to understand there's not enough people speaking out for people in the streets in the schemes hurt in the slums that people can change you can still have a better life you don't need to accept the life of a drink drugs abuse violence you don't need to accept it you can take responsibility bring the reins back and then create a life that you want it's amazing to see when you wrote Trainspot and Irvine was that therapy for you? I think it was kind of therapeutic I think alright in this therapeutic though I mean I think it's because it was in some ways it was personal I needed to get it out there was a very therapeutic element to it but even when I've written books that aren't seeming to be so personal they've still had that impact for me you know they've still made me feel as if like a kind of you know this is good, there's some kind of a boil here you know I feel much more kind of at ease and relaxed and all that you know the only thing is the dangerous thing for me is when I turn the book in or when a film wraps or when a play comes to its end I just think wow it's time to party and then just get back to work get back to work that is the part where that's that middle part where the free time kicks in do you know what I mean the worst thing about it is you feel that you've earned that free time you know and you think just well I've earned I've earned the right I've fought for the right to party I've earned this holiday to an extent but in some ways I think that and I've got a lot better kicking back and relaxing and all that now and it's like kind of you do I mean I kind of meditate now I can sit on the beach in Miami and I think to myself shall I go for a cocktail no actually I won't sit on the beach I'll take kind of deep breaths and I'll look out what's going on here and I'll just get a one with myself get the breathing right and all that but I think that keeps the demons at bay the breathing exercises to really appreciate life fabulous I would recommend it to everybody because I was up in the mountains and one doing my friend Ned, Neil and Jerry and we do a lot of Wim Hofstaff which is breathing exercises this guy runs up mountains in his pants and he controls his central nervous system where he's breathing so he goes into ice cold waters but because it's so cold the body goes into shock it's breathing through it what happens as you go wait a minute I'll adapt to it it's like anything in life you can adapt to any situation it's just try to focus on okay there's a situation here that I need to work on but okay I'm going to accept it and let's find solutions instead of finding the problems yeah well that's the thing when the you know the body going into shock and kind of fighting through it and all that that's one of the things that that's the things that Miss Brad in the despairing like you know bang you know fighting through it breath through it breath through it it's just your body going into shock aye because you were punching me go on to Edinburgh's son which is Brad Welsh I haven't met the guy who came on my podcast and we clicked straight away we had big plans to do a lot of homeless stuff in Edinburgh and Glasgow massive 100 mile an hour great guy how did your relationship with Brad come about oh I've just I've known him since he was a kid basically you know but he was like it's like when all the all the younger kind of casuals kind of came on the boss and all that I remember kind of it's only about 14 something like that I remember looking at him I was thinking who's this wee guy he's just he's really cocky you know and I remember he kind of he came up to me and he goes and I must have been about 24 or 25 or something I was living in London and he goes your name is Welsh and he goes aye he goes you live in London and he goes aye because he says you're fucking fancy yourself now this is a 14 year old wee guy and I'm like what the fuck and he goes like Leith Welshes or Southside Welshes and he goes well Leith Welshes what about you Southside who's this wee bum like you know he kind of like you know I sort of like he kind of you know I knew he was a boxer so obviously kind of fun I was interested in what he was doing and all that and he he started going out with Emma who was my friend Titch who grew up with Muirhouse's daughter and Titch was saying here is Brad Welsh he's got a bad reputation he's gone out with Emma she's my pride and joy what's going on here and I kind of said no no Brad's brilliant he's top class he's a giant and all that so we kind of it's sort of he started kind of boxing together he started going to the club and it's like he's kind of he always knew when I was back at Edinburgh because he knew everybody all the taxi drivers and all like Irvine what are you up to and he was like so we all we just always kind of sort of you know we'd fun each other every other day basically you know we'd always if anything happened this flat got burgled and he was the first person I called I'll send a joiner right around so the joiner Chris is round in a second just redoing everything up and he was always like when we were in the town he was sitting in my life like I'll get you a car I'd have a car for it to drive around and all this stuff he was just like he's such a great loss to me personally a great loss to so many people because he was so kind of fun he just took such an interest in people basically but a massive loss to the community for all the stuff he did through the help and hands and it's great that his nephew Jake's been brilliant and just kept all that going Jim Slaven's been brilliant and all the guys in the Hollywood boxing club they just want to carry on his legacy and just kept it all going like amazing because the help and hands stuff are people watching check out the Facebook pages and it's good to see people taking the reins from that and really loving his legacy because it's only fair they did that and it's great to see that he's got more backing and people are really helping out with him it's good man it's refreshing do you know what I mean because again it's the kids it's a massive loss for because it was thousands and thousands of kids with food banks helping out and the most important thing about Brad to me was like anybody that walked through the door of the club you know whether it was like say it was like kind of a woman who's just had a kid and wants to get a figure back or whether it was a a guy who was preparing for a professional amateur senior fight he just wanted everybody to be the very best possible version of himself and he didn't and he wanted to be the very best version of himself and that was his kind of whole path he was on he just kept getting better and he certainly made me a better person for being friends with him but I'm a lot better person than I would have been otherwise and it was great to see him in training spotting too yeah it was great it was like of course Brad being Brad is just telling Danny Boyle how to direct it just take a back seat and let Danny do his job because he's like let John write his script you want to write the book you want to go back in time and write the book how long did it take you to write the first book training spotting well it was working it was in a strange situation because I got sent to do an MBA at Harriet Watt University and that was so I was getting involved and sort of in the rave scene and going everywhere and Raven had started Dejan with Chris Needs and I was doing the invisible insurrection thing Kevin Williamson was putting on all that stuff in the unemployed workers centre and I kind of got involved in doing all these kind of readings and stuff with him and I was kind of doing it piecemeal I was writing these stories that would kind of become training spotting and a guy called Duncan McLean kind of a really good writer who was a friend of Kevin's and he got in touch and he's seen this kind of story that I had in this magazine and he goes if you've got any more of this because he was signed up to a big publisher in London and I said yeah, yeah I have which is a lie I'd fuck all this so I thought I'd better start doing more so I had some pressure on and he said he told me to send it to his editor basically down in London and there's a guy called Robin Robertson who's an editor then he's still my publisher so I sent it off and the manuscript off and I went away on holiday when my ex went away to Spain and when I came back there was this string of messages on the answering machine it was a posh Scottish voice that's Robin Robertson from Jonathan Cape publishing here we love the novel we really like to publish it we should talk about this and I thought this is one of my mates doing the pub taking the push basically I just ignored it and then the next one comes up it's Robin Robertson here anybody else made another offer for this and it's like then the the offers kept coming up he kept raising the money and I thought fuck it, hell I'm into this man so and then I thought it was all junk mail I noticed all these kind of circulars but they were all from the publisher so I got back in touch and it was this kind of you could feel the need in them basically it was great and they were treating me like I lived in London half my adult life but when I went down there they were kind of the London kind of literature to take me around some fucking kind of stick of the dump just came with it this is London, this is great as it gets and I was like I was playing up to it, I was playing this kind of hasty guy I fucking tried to grow up but I was keeping all that quiet and I was just just kind of allowing myself to kind of feel my way into that so fake it till you make it kind of thing I basically had made it because it was really strange because after all the failure and music, the failure the knockbacks, the humiliations and all that the first thing I've ever written gets sent to the biggest publisher in London who publish it and it instantly becomes a big seller then it gets made into a play then it gets made into an internationally kind of a claim full on then it becomes an international best seller so I mean it was just like kind of and this all happened, it was a gradual climb that happened in about two and a half three or four years and all the other books kind of that had done and the best thing I did the very best thing I did was I just kept writing I didn't stop at the train spot and I kind of had the acetows came out, then Maribu stopped nightmares and full effects to say crime, glue and all that I just kept going on and because of that I wasn't kind of bamboozled by kind of the glitz and the glam the glitz and the glam, it was bamboozled but it was kind of everybody wanting to take me out and get drunk with me if everybody wanted to shag me it was all fun it was a terrible life but I fought through it with fortitude and with dignity but that's because you found your passion you found your love there's nothing that I want to do more than that this was a thing that was really I thought this is what I'm enjoying doing, I'm writing these stories I'm enjoying the fuck out of it, I'm putting these books together I'm starting to write these screenplays I'm putting that together, I'm getting involved in film and I'm going on TV and stuff like that this was just great so everything else all the trappings of that you can do that or you can not dip into it it's not important though did you realise how big it would have been once you'd finished it, not just for yourself but for even the people who played the parts and the film, the plays how many lives it's actually changed did you realise that, did you have a gut feeling that this is going to be massive no, you think at the time if your mates will read it and probably enjoy it and maybe some people kind of in Edinburgh or read it but you don't really think of it as being it's not the book you would think about as transferable because so much of it is written in the Scottish vernacular and you think people aren't going to get this but why are people in like Australia and South Africa and kind of why are they reading it but the translations apparently really work as well it's like people say I think the characters are universal everybody knows to some extent a big bear, a spud, a sick boy, a renton and it's like people in Moscow say oh we know this big bear character we know this renton character we know a spud, don't we and so these characters are fairly universal archetypes but I think also what's kept it kind of so prominent are the themes of industrialisation and the redundancy of human beings and what do we do in the post-work world how do we adapt to it we're changing now we've gone from the medieval era into the capitalist era kind of the feudal era the capitalist era now we're into this conceptual era but we don't actually make physical goods we just manufacture ideas and they're harder to sell so there's not a commercial marketplace so we're in this kind of de-industrialising kind of kind of non-profit, non-wage era so it's like and when you think about it, every time you have a transition you have the transition from feudalism to capitalism you had a plague and we had the black death came in and that was because people were pushed together in these in sanitary conditions and now I think the new plague on drugs and not necessarily not just illegal drugs but all the big pharma and the massive prescribing of drugs for every ailment and that's because it is the last stand I mean it's like kind of it's like the impact on neoliberalism and housing and education and now it's kind of happening in health and we'll keep you alive until you're 100 or 150 but you'll be fucking miserable for half these years and you'll be dependent on these products so we have to keep you going like these pills so it's a that kind of that kind of creation of not a market because markets are supposed to be competitive but a captive audience that you're feeding this kind of product to and that's the new plague it's like a psychic plague we're not kind of crushed together in these in sanitary conditions but now we're kind of we're overloaded with information and disinformation and we have to sift through that and it's psychically it's just too much for people basically a lot of people's minds are breaking down suicides on the rise as well social media is not far behind it social media is playing a big part in people's lives or living a great life anybody can promote a great life on social media everybody does, I mean I do it myself on Instagram it's like it's amazing everyone's got their own discipline I mean I'm a total cunt on Twitter I mean it's the bastard to everybody I mean it's like fuck you fuck this cunt fuck that because it's just nasty fleeting thoughts that you fire out like whereas on Instagram it's like oh look at me I'm having fun man obviously it can be a bastard but he can utilise that to your advantage see when you're picking the characters for transport and did you have a say in the actors well we talked about the casting of it and Danny was really keen on Ewan McGregor cos he worked with him on Shallow Grave and it was fabulous and he was also keen on Christopher Eccleston was on Shallow Grave to play Begby cos Christopher Eccleston was a really big guy he was a fantastic actor Christopher Eccleston so it would have been interesting casting but they went with Bobby who was like the wee guy basically and it's like the kind of there's something horrible about you know it's sort of like a big hard bastard you know you think fuck me I'm going to get a kicking for this big hard cunt but a wee hard bastard you think fuck me I'm going to get a kicking for this wee hard bastard and even if I give this guy a fucking kicking there's no glory in it you're just picked on this little cunt so you think fuck I've lost before I even start so it's like but there's something in Sendery about the crazy wee guy basically so Bobby really inhabits that kind of space and he made Begby a completely different character to how I envisaged him in the book I saw him as being a much bigger physical presence and and Ewan was in the play the train spot in play Ewan Bremner was in the train spot in play and I really liked Ewan as an actor so I kind of put him in Susan Viddler who was in the train spot in play because I'd seen them both in that that Mike Lee film Naked they were the two kind of young kind of Edinburgh street urchins lost in London who were having this big argument with each other on the street and walking past I thought fuck me I'm actually hearing two Edinburgh kids because it's usually a Glasgow accent when you see kids playing these kind of characters God it's two Edinburgh I wonder who these guys are they'd be brilliant for this play so we've got in touch with them we've got them cast for the play and Danny really liked them so he had them in the movie and Johnny Lee Miller I didn't know anything about Johnny but at that time he was probably kind of the most Hollywood at them all like he was kind of the most successful and um Is that about what he was married to he was the hardest he used to be married to Brad Pitt Angelina Jolie, yeah he was married to Angelina Jolie for a while like yeah How does that make you feel as well to creating these A-list stars already to have their talent anyway but for that big break is the relationship still great with you as the cast it's funny because when we got together a few years ago to do Transpot in 2 it was interesting that we kind of um we'd all kind of not collectively but individually we'd all maintained relationships and friendships and you know some more than others obviously but you kind of do if you run into people if you're going out to LA to my managers and to my agents you just keep running into them you run into them in the offices in CAA you run into them in certain kind of like so house and bars and stuff like that and you're just into that little you know that world is just there and it goes on you know but it's like and you have a laugh and you go out and have a few drinks and everybody knows that it's not the real world that they live in it's just this little bubble that we meet in basically How did your relationship with Danny Boyle come about Well what happened was that Danny, Andrew and John were kind of they were very close when they did Shallow Grave it was like John's screenwriter Andrew the producer and Danny the director and Danny had got in touch and he goes like I really want you to see Shallow Grave because I think that with your characters and the energy in Shallow Grave it would be a perfect kind of mix I saw Shallow Grave and I thought fucking hell this is perfect this would be great this fucking Newtown Ponces of which I'm the one actually ironically here we are in the fucking Newtown but get rid of these Newtown Ponces and get some fucking real punters for the schemes involved get some lethers into the mix and you know that would be and with that energy that would be just perfect the perfect balance for you know and so that was how it kind of so he sent me a copy of the the film I think it was out he just sent me a copy of it I should have pirate it so he goes like he said he said I'm I really like Shallow Grave and all that and he goes well my guy will be in touch and we can see if we can do some business and I had no agent at the time but I was just this naive part basically and everybody used to say to me like first minute to Hollywood and who's your agent who's reffrin you know we're one of your right first no it's just me there's a fucking village in Scotland missing an idiot it's not how we do things here so but anyway I was living in Amsterdam and it's like Danny has said we're ready to do the deal and this guy gets in touch with me and he goes like I really want to buy the rights to train spotting and I was well how much are we talking he gave me this sum and it was a lot more than Danny had mentioned but I thought this guy was Danny's producer because Danny said my producer will be in touch like and so he gave me this guy made the software and I thought this is fucking great and he said the guy actually said that Danny Boyle would be fantastic for this he said yeah brilliant he'll knock it out of the park so it was like a misunderstanding so I stole the rights to the wrong guy basically I didn't sell the rights to Andrew Danny's guy and Danny sent me this really hurt note and he's going like what the fuck I thought we had an understanding me and Andrew and John just work together we're indivisible you've got to take and I said well it's fine I sold it to the wrong guy oh fuck but he also said it's funny three times the money we were going to offer that's good for me but I can't direct it that's not so good without Andrew being involved producer and John screenwriting so what I did was what they did is they got in touch with the guy who bought the rights and fair play to the guy who sold it back to them for the same price but they had to pay more they had to pay me more and they would have paid that so it was great so you won both ways you'll know his daff you'll know his daff sometimes something's that stumbling naively through the minefield means that you can miss all the mines basically if you don't know where they actually are it's when you're aware of where they are once it gets released you're rubbing shoulders with all the A-listers so the temptation wasn't there to slip back into old habits because you'd focus more on the writing yeah I got right into the writing and I was like by that time I was starting to map out different books and different ideas and deadlines I was dipping my toe and all that stuff and we were going to Cannes and showing the movie and we were going out to LA and talking to studios and stuff like that working for them and all this kind of stuff but to me I just wanted to get back to what was really into doing which was the writing which was knocking out more books it was important for me to keep that engine and keep that focus going and it was funny it was like James Kilman who was a fantastic Glasgow writer and he had won the Booker Prize and I was talking to him and he said when all this bullshit starts what you do is just get on with your work and it was the best advice but it was what I was actually feeling myself and that's what he does and that's what all people that in anything do you can't even bask in praise it's not anything to do with you in a sense you've created something people appreciate and they want to be a part of it let them get on with it and go on to the next thing the next thing might not be as commercially successful it might not hit that kind of zeitgeist in the same way as the last thing but it's not really what you want some of my most most satisfying books I've done have been least commercially successful so it's like it's like when I wrote Filth for example that was like it was a difficult book to write because the protagonist was very difficult but when that actually got filmed seeing James McAvoy who's kind of he's just an amazing actor he's one of the best actors in the world just now I think he's certainly when you see him and you could argue that if you look at all the films that he's done you could argue that's maybe James' career best film I think the one he played the split personality fucking phenomenal part when I saw this when I saw the rushes from that film that John Burt had done and John was showing me the rush and he said watch this scene here and that's the scene where he's like kind of he's watching this video his wife and kids and he starts making an abuse of phone call to his best mate's wife and he starts wanking off at the same time and he's looking at that and he starts crying when he says that you know and I think if you watch the emotional transitions in that scene you think how the fuck does he do that that was a mind fuck that film but when you see him just doing that scene all of life is in that one scene how the fuck does he do that does he make these transitions so effortlessly but so completely real you know and I'm like fucking hell man that's acting I think he's a great actor he's up there one of the best now so when you obviously created Trainspot on it it's global success what made you even think about writing a second one because that can really go Pete Tong but it was an accident again when I wrote Porno it was like Porno was like I didn't intend to make it about these characters but it was like the sick boy character had a different name it was about this guy and this woman and about their relationship basically and I realised this character is just sick boy everybody's going to see that his sick boy is exactly the same character and they crashed into this book so I thought well I've told his story so I've got to tell the rest of the gang story again I've got to find a way to get them back into this so it was like it was an interesting book to write because sick boy was the main character in it and Big Bay and Spud are just they do what they do basically but Renton was the one that I couldn't find and it took me a while to get back into thinking about Renton again I kind of lost that character but I went into when I wrote Dead Men's Trousers I thought I'm going to focus on Renton and try and find out what he's all about what's been happening to him more so yeah so it was it was an interesting kind of it's an interesting thing to see these books together and see where they're all can you shout yourself to like that yeah I was but you shout yourself to everything you know and the book I'm writing now is just a completely different thing but you know you shout yourself again you think to yourself if you're not shouting yourself you're not doing your job like you know if you're so complacent about it you know you've got to have this thing like when you finish a book you've got to think to yourself fuck what's my mother going to do you have to have that feeling and it's a horrible feeling but it's also comforting as well if you don't have that feeling you know it's going to be crap you know you've got to kind of get that kind of have that reaction from yourself you've got to have that fear of complete social humiliation and embarrassment and all that I think it's um that's actually a very good thing to kind of try and fight through I think it's good for you psychologically I think so because life begins at the end of the comfort zone as cheesy as it is it's through I think that's where growth is and obviously because I train sport it was massive global success it still gets spoke about 20 or years later so for you to do the second one there must have been a lot of pressure on you have you ever felt the first time around yeah I mean um you know it's funny again it's like I don't actually feel the pressure about you know the business and the commerce side of it you know I almost feel that I've written the book I've done the best I can whether people like it or they don't like it or they're indifferent to it's kind of out of my hands now I've given it my best shot you know so over to you guys it's not minds anymore basically how was the when you approached the cast for it for the second time did they just all agree straight away yeah I mean it's like we had a very tight window basically you know so it was like that had been the problem of trying to get everybody back you know it was like so fun because you've got to have not just the four main guys but you know some of the other people involved in the cast as well but also the everybody's availability to be together and you've got to everybody has their own different projects they're working on so to get all these different people is maybe about kind of maybe about 20 or 30 people above and below the line they all need to be together again you know so it's difficult to do that so going forward for the future with yourself are there possible trains spotting free fill them wise I don't know I mean I don't think so I mean it's like can you think you know you think about the Godfather 3 the Terminator 3 you know it's like kind of it's a temptation to do the you know the Holy Trinity and I'm hoping that that kind of it might evoke Danny's inner Catholic about you know trying to do the Holy Trinity but I'm not sure I think and you know it's like it took us long enough to work up the bottle to do two I mean they'll all be in the rest of them by the time we work up the bottle to do three so we'd have to get moving on it pretty quickly and I think that um yeah I don't know I mean it's something that I mean it would be massively interesting to me but I mean the one that I would like to do would be that kind of bag based stand alone the blade artist there's just a short little you know a kind of 90 minute film with Robert Carlisle going nuts kind of I think that would be fucking just hearing through the streets of Edinburgh fucking with a machete basically so for the future then which are plans then well we've got just short creation stories the kind of McGee biopic so we're getting that done I did this big novel that was kind of very ambitious and it probably wasn't working as a novel but I've sold it as a TV show in America so I'll be working on the development of that working on doing some kind of being working on scripts for two of my novels for television and I'm working on another novel now so I'm kind of firing on that yeah that's a good thing so yeah you've got to kind of keep going as we've said the busier the better sorry just before we finish up because I know you play parts yourself in some of your films which is a good thing I would be doing the fucking same but for the trainspot in two you've got the boys from the Alton Athletic in yeah I mean they were in Trainspot in one as well they're just inspirational guys and Davey Bryce is another great character that's kind of slowly slowly missing Glasgow and Davey is just an incendiary force basically like you know but these guys are brilliant and they really they've backed us up all the way and they've just been an incredible part of the project and I think it's great that you give guys like this a chance to work with people who are A-listers to yeah and Davey Bryce what he's done for Calton for people with addictions all around Glasgow and Scotland it's been phenomenal and yeah I know he's sun it's like why don't they give people like Davey Bryce Knight who is instead of paying files and fraudsters basically so that's just phenomenal what they've done and I think that's amazing that you give people a chance in getting to see and work with people it gives people hope and inspiration and coming on today mate and telling your story it's been absolutely phenomenal it's been a pleasure buddy an inspiration for what you've achieved and what you've done it's amazing and people take a lot of inspiration for that so thanks a lot it's been an absolute pleasure cheers buddy