I know what your perception of me is. You think I’m a streetwise, laid-back, magnificently on-trend hipster who can get away with using words like “magnificently” just because I said it’s The Next Big Word.

Well, I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong. I, ladies and gentlemen, am indeed a complete and utter BADASS.

To prove the point, here are ten examples to back me up. Ten autobiographical instances of me out-swagging anyone and anything I happen to encounter.

Yes, you may take notes if you wish.

1. The time I had a brush with the law
In 2007, four months after passing my driving test, I was questioned by police and dealt my first proper caution. But rather than feeling any hint of shame or embarrassment, I found the whole ordeal inappropriately cool. Throughout my entire stint at secondary school I had been given only one detention – for forgetting my exercise book, of all things – so this was my proper Lindsay Lohan moment of falling from grace and tumbling off the proverbial rails. I could see it all before my eyes: I envisaged a full-scale badass meltdown, starting with a long period of drug-laden partying before a few more brushes with The Fuzz and an eventual well-deserved stint in police custody. What would have followed would have involved unfortunate addictions to hardcore pornography and meaningless sex, before my friends and family finally stepped in with a dramatic intervention; the result of which would have been a week or two in a high-end rehab facility before a full Changed Man comeback into suburban society and a resolve to start a charity and help others, like myself, who found themselves on the Wrong Side Of The Tracks. Alas, my caution was only for a flickering brake light, and that was pretty much the end of that. They even let me keep my breathalyser thing.

2. The time I stole
It’s time I got something off my chest. I’m not proud of it, and I know it’s against the law. I should probably hand myself into the police, to be quite honest; but, for now, this very paragraph will serve as my conscience-cleansing confession. When I was very young, and on a family holiday, I… God, sorry,this is quite difficult for me to admit… I stole a small pack of chewing gum from a market stall in Spain. I was gearing myself to ask my parents if we could buy it, but then they strolled on to the next stall and I followed behind them, completely forgetting the unpurchased item I was unintentionally smuggling off-site. OH GOD, THE SHAME.

3. The time I angrily rammed my car into the back of another on the M11
We all played Burnout when we were younger, RIGHT LADS? The aim of the whole game was to create spectacular car crashes, and in 2007, I made one. I was angry. I was full of rage. RAGE, DAMMIT. And I took that rage and I rammed my car into the back of the one in front whilst journeying northbound on the M11. Admittedly it was totally unintentional, and my rage stemmed purely from the fact that I was singing along to a fairly angry Sugababes song at top of my lungs – but all the same… it counts, right? Still, I profusely apologised to the other driver and poor Maude – my battered Ford Fiesta – was never the same again.

4. The time I told Sir Tom Jones to get out of my way
Pfft. Celebrities. “Celebrities”. Who do they think they are? Super-humans? Persons to whom the basic rules of polite social behaviour do not apply? When I went to the press junket for The Voice UK last year, I was on my way out of this grand, obscenely posh dining room when Sir Tom Jones was blocking the doorway. He was facing away from me, and I was in a hurry to leave. So what did I do? I told him to stand aside. No, really. I honestly did just that. I went right up to him and I said… uh… “Excuse, me Sir Tom, so sorry to… erm… Sorry, can I just…” He didn’t hear me. I stood there awkwardly until he moved on his own accord.

5. The time I went streaking
This is VERY badass, I feel. At the end of my third year of university, there was a big club night on campus, and I went along with two of my housemates (one male, one female). We got incredibly drunk and, at the end of the night, whilst stumbling home singing The Hits Of Alexandra Burke in the faces of any strangers who passed us, we decided to randomly unbutton the ol’ trousers and run around streaking. Everything that the law requires you to keep covered up in public places, we unleashed unto the great, unsuspecting people of Norwich. Sadly, we were actually on a secluded unlit field, so nobody actually witnessed anything. Oh, my female friend and I didn’t quite expose the lot. We just whipped out the tiniest hint of arse cheek before continuing on our journey home. My other friend, however…

6. The time I dyed my hair WITHOUT PARENTAL CONSENT
I don’t know why I did it. I don’t know why an 18-year-old ‘bloke’ placed precariously low on the social ladder would want to change his hair colour when there was absolutely nothing wrong with the original. But hey. I’m just that kinda guy, you know? I’m just that spontaneous. So, in 2008, whilst away on a lads’ holiday (… to  a bungalow in Norfolk), I did it. I bought the dye, I got my friends to help me ‘put it on’, and there we go. A nice chocolatey brown. Or at least it was meant to be. What I actually ended up with was an electric red that looked kinda purple under bright lights.

7. The time I downed a bottle of vodka in lighting time
Few things are less badass than being a lightweight drinker. Imagine being the sort of loser who has a small shandy and passes out over a toilet bowl? Pah! NOT I! Nope, in my second year at uni, at a house party at our place, I got through a whole MASSIVE bottle of vodka in what I think was around an hour. Ish. I’m uncertain over the exact time because I unfortunately only remember the first half hour or so. After that, all I have are the following flashes: Trying to hold an intelligent conversation but seeing about three versions of everyone I was talking to. Going to the toilet and feeling very queasy. Noticing vomit flying casually out of my mouth. Sitting on the bathroom floor with my trousers down. Sitting on an armchair with a bucket on my lap, surrounded by so many friends I assumed I was on my deathbed. The next morning I was told that I had virtually painted the entire bathroom in sick, before being found on the cold, hard floor with my freezing, shrivelled cock on full display. Apparently I was put to bed and supervised throughout the night. In the three years that have since passed, I have never let myself get drunk enough to lose control of my actions or my memory, mostly out of a new in-built fear of inadvertently revealing my genitals to people who didn’t want to see them. HARDCORE!

8. The time I cut the crap and LAID IT ON THE LINE
I. Am. CRAP at arguments. Absolutely awful. Either I take an approach so diplomatic that I end up just grovelling and trying desperately to change the subject, or I shun my own well-thought-out points in favour of half-arsed apologies and catty comments. So imagine my triumphant moment of  glory when I decided that, for once, I was really going to Say It How It Is Was. Cut the bullshit and properly go for it. YEAH! It was at the business end of a long-standing period of unrest with one particular close friend at uni. So away I went. Only, instead of Socking It To Him in a face-to-face showdown, I just got pathetically pissed and sent a stroppy text message. I was so proud of it for about ten minutes. After that, I realised that I had probably made a bit of an error and, absolutely wasted by way of cheap alcohol, I sent another text (this time embarrassingly apologetic) and made my way home… stopping by at his flat en route in floods of tears to wail out an apology. Nice one.

9. The time I cut class
Who needs education? As the great poet laureate of all things cool Miley Cyrus once said, “Every day’s the same, stuck in school so lame”. Well, Miley, you know what you should do? Skip it. Skip it all. You don’t want to go to a lesson? Don’t go! There was one occasion on a friend of mine’s birthday in Sixth Form (yep, when it wasn’t even compulsory to be in school in the first place) when I cut English class and went with my friend to the park… for, after all, it is the park where 90% of teenage badassness takes place. It was all well and good until being out in the sun made me feel faint and I had to sit under a tree for a few minutes. I saw my English teacher in the corridor later that day and, of course, apologised profusely.

10. The time I sacked off school uniform and wore football shorts
It was cos I was 8 and I’d pissed myself during lunch.