I was a secret shopper and had to do a lot of bookies – Coral and William Hill – all around London. For 18-year-old me looking all fab it was quite scary going in and saying: “Hiya, can I put £4 on No 7 horse, please?” But you got to keep the money when you won.

When I started as a researcher in the BBC, I was working for an editor who was a self-confessed misogynist. He used to practise shooting by aiming his air gun at an aerosol can balanced just over my head. I made it a matter of pride not to flinch as the pellets whizzed by.

In the school holidays, I worked at a soft drinks factory in Southport.

Cleaning toilets in a motorway service station.

That there is no ideal life. Disappointments sit around every corner, so enjoy the here and now.

When I get to the restaurant and don’t see any hot sauce on the table.

When my trousers nearly fell down at Buckingham Palace. I was there to collect my OBE, and the suspenders for the beautiful Alexander McQueen suit I’d had made for the occasion went missing. Naomi Campbell was with me and we had a good laugh about it.

Any time I’ve been racially profiled. The words might be different, but the feeling is the same.

Impatience. Though sometimes it helps!

In African families, you can be one of three things: a doctor, a lawyer or a failure. I wanted to be an Egyptologist, but things worked out in the end.