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Throughout my career, in cricket and beyond, I've been incredibly lucky with my marriage. I met Rachael in 2002, and that was the year my England career kicked on. Everything started to click.
A lot of the lads have a bat for the nets, a bat for facing the bowling machine and a separate bat for the match. I'll just crack on with a bat until it breaks - then crack on with another one.
When you get offered the captaincy, you've got to have a go. In India, where it went well, I was playing well ,and anything that needed doing, I'd do it myself. When I wasn't playing well, it was tough.
I was just 17 when I made my debut for Lancashire against Hampshire at Portsmouth. I got seven and a duck. I didn't get a wicket, either. Funnily enough, it was more nerve-wracking than playing for England.
Since leaving cricket, I've tried my hand at professional boxing, a live stage show, and working for TV. I've had some interesting experiences, including working with the former basketball player Dennis Rodman.
When you bowl at him you are not just trying to get him out, you are trying to impress him. "I want him to walk off thinking 'that Flintoff, he's all right isn't he?" I feel privileged to have played against him.
I've been offered all the usual, 'Strictly Come Dancing' and the like, but the one thing I know is that for me to be good, I've got to absolutely love doing something. And you can't dance the foxtrot half-hearted.
I can remember all the bad games and rubbish shots I've played far more than all my successes. Luckily, as I've got older, I've got better at dealing with that. What's the point of regrets? They don't change anything.
I worked behind the record counter at Woolworths when I was 16. It was when Oasis' 'Definitely Maybe' came out and The Verve were getting big. I'd have probably worked my way up to store manager if I'd have stuck around.
In boxing, Mike Tyson fascinates me. The attitude and confidence that he could not be beaten when he was heavyweight champion of the world was interesting. He came across as very mild-mannered, and much of what he said made sense.
I wish I'd walked out of 'The Tourist' with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. I said to the missus after two minutes, 'He's her husband.' An hour and a half's worth of nonsense later, the big twist at the end is... he's her husband.
They're strange, the Aussies. Because if they like you, they say, 'Oh, he's an Aussie.' And I keep saying, 'I'm not, I'm from Preston.' There's nothing Australian about me. Don't start claiming me just because I've got a job over here.
I like to think I'm calm. Sometimes I have arrived at the ground in the morning in a bad mood - you're not always going to be in the best of moods are you? - but by the time you get into the ground and you have a brew then it's normally fine.
One of the reasons why you want to play cricket is to play in front of big crowds, and in India, it is the perfect place to do that. The atmosphere here is like no other place in the world. Having experienced it once, you want to keep coming back.
It annoys me when I phone a hotel receptionist in my own country, and they don't understand what I am saying because they don't speak English. I think that's wrong. It's nothing to do with being politically correct or incorrect; it's just not right.
Playing for England was always something I dreamt of and, of course, you then think of the captaincy. It was something I never thought I would be offered, especially after the way I started my career. But when it came along, I was very keen to have a go.
When I was younger, I played football and table tennis for local teams. I also played mini-rugby at primary school - I was tall for my age - and Preston Grasshoppers wanted me, but I wasn't that interested in rugby. It was always going to be cricket for me.
I flew to Los Angeles to interview Vinnie Jones and Piers Morgan for the BBC and spent 11 hours in economy on BA, and the leg room was fine. In business class, Virgin, BA, and Emirates are good. I've flown business class on Kingfisher, which has proper couches.
I remember, when Paul Collingwood first came into the dressing room, we did everything together. We practised together, trained together, had dinner together; we batted together and did well in games together - we were thick as thieves. When he got established, he just binned me.
India - I've always felt at home there. Delhi and Mumbai and the Taj Mahal are all incredible - but it's the people I love. Indians are so interesting and accommodating and friendly. The best hotel I've stayed at there is the Rambagh Palace in Jaipur: its architecture is unbelievable.
Ambition is a funny thing. In cricket, as in many professions, it tends to take you on a journey away from where you started. That's fine, maybe inevitable. But no one ever tells you that the biggest days aren't always the best days. And the richest prizes aren't the ones you remember.
I made a series for ITV, just after I retired from Tests in 2009, called 'Flintoff Versus the World.' The idea was that I would attempt a series of extreme sports - rodeo riding, jumping out of aeroplanes, paragliding, cliff diving. I thought, 'Yeah, it looks fun. It's six weeks having a laugh.'
There have always been two people jostling for control of my life, two totally opposite characters. The first one is super-confident, bulletproof, a showman, and an extrovert. He tries to make people laugh, messes about, gets into trouble, shrugs it off. The other character is withdrawn and reflective.
Cricket was deemed too posh where I came from, and I'd never have risked walking home through the estates in my whites. My club played some of the posh schools. I'd have the cheapest kit, but I loved those games. As soon as the posh lads opened their mouths and you heard their accents, the stakes were raised.
I took my wife to a really expensive hotel in Dubai. This was when we were first dating, so I wanted to impress her. I had scallops, and after that, I went to the bathroom to be sick. I realised I had just paid £300 or £400 on scallops just to throw it up. My wife and I then talked about it; I knew I had a problem.