"All the other stuff - the socialising and drinking and stuff that people say are important parts of university because it teaches you social skills - is fucking nonsense, because you learn that at infant school or comprehensive. Or at least, you're meant to. I think if I'd been able to have a flat of my own it would have been very different because I've never been very good with very many different people. I've always surrounded myself with just a very few people. To hole myself up in a tower block with hundreds of people I had nothing in common with was a really bad experience."