He's finally happy with the direction his music is now going, and after reading this book I truly couldn't be happier for the guy. When he explains the appeal of John Lydon – he “had this image of being a bit rotten, vicious, but actually he was a really intelligent, sensitive kid… quite timid” – you feel he could be describing himself: soft-spoken, always preferring “Peter” to “Pete”, pinpointing the vulnerability that endeared him to his fans. The story they gave to the NME about “shagging old men in hotel rooms,” was later amplified in the tabloids as Doherty being a rent boy, which wasn’t true. On tour in Japan – when he realised how addicted to heroin he was – he says everyone else was “reining it in a bit, and I was really reining it out, if that’s an expression”.

Doherty made eye contact with a homeless man standing back from the crowd, watching, and a silent understanding passed between them. At the time, it was such a big scandal that Mullord appeared on the front of the Evening Standard claiming he was innocent. It’s completely shocking,” he complained, adding that, after being read by Carl Barât, Kate Moss’s lawyers and his wife, “all the good bits” were taken out. That would have been useful at least , if Pete feels like this, to say a bit more in that he had the chance to survive this drug abuse but more are those who had no chance.With his wildest days behind him, Doherty candidly explores - with sober and sometimes painful insight - some of his greatest and darkest moments, taking us inside the creative process, decadent parties, substance-fuelled nights, his time in prison and tendency for self-destruction. The issue is not that the book is lacking in salacious stories – there are plenty – it’s just that Doherty doesn’t seem to have much to say about them. With his trademark wit and humour, Doherty also details his childhood years, key influences, pre-fame London shenanigans, and reflects on his era-defining relationship with Libertines co-founder Carl Barât and other significant people in his life. Hope he'll continue writing and playing and drawing and doing all sorts of art for many years to come.

Elsewhere, the singer “fell asleep on the motorway hard shoulder on my way to Heathrow in my Jag… I was woken up, with a crack pipe in mouth, by a policeman banging on the window. And much akin to Coleridge's epic narrative paradise Kubla Khan, offering a literary association to opioids of intrigue and luxurious spaces of nirvana and accomplishment. I'm sorry but these guys are not rock stars by any means, too nice, sweet, polished and well-behaved.This stands out as a rock n roll biography that can be enjoyed by hardcore fans as well as people who are have never heard of Doherty pr the Libertines. He comes across as an intelligent person, but someone who has carried the monkey of addiction on his back for so long. You sense, off stage, the pain and frustration of Barât, as his friend’s dissolution imperilled their band in its infancy.