Raging bullsh*t

It's just before the point when the pain turns from discomforting to agonising that Chris Eubank lets go of my hand. It's not surprising he has a strong grip - you don't get to be a world boxing champion with a limp handshake - but when he finally releases me, I get the chance to notice how his hands are remarkably well-kept, considering what he's done with them.

But then Eubank has always prided himself on his appearance, always ensuring he is immaculately turned out. Today, for a book signing for his autobiography at Waterstone's in the MetroCentre, he is in fairly typical garb of blue suit with a red pinstripe, pink and blue striped tie, a black bowler hat and a silver topped cane. He keeps his bowler hat on.

He may be smart, but his dress sense has made Eubank something of an object of ridicule. That and the way he speaks. Which is very deliberate and oddly punctuated, with full stops in all sorts of strange places. It's a bit unfair, but the lisp doesn't help either. But Eubank is not about to dress down.

"Hey, it is fashion. Let it go. It is just my perception of how I want to appear," he says. "I care about my appearance and I would rather you look at me positively than negatively. I'm not scruffy. If you dress scruffy, you act scruffy. I want to be neat. I am neat. Do you know why I'm neat? Because I dress neat. I dress neat, it makes me think neat. I am what I portray."

Sorry I mentioned it. But that reminds me, his clothes and his way of speaking aren't the only reasons Eubank has become a figure of fun. There's also his philosophising, treating the most humdrum of observations as though they were profound insights.

His image is as an arrogant showman, and he says it was partly to try and dispel this myth that he wanted to do his own reality TV show, At Home With The Eubanks. Others may see it as further proof of his arrogance that he thinks people want to see him driving around Brighton in his monster trucks.

"It was a great opportunity for me. Showing that I'm a husband to a wife. A son to a mother. A father to my children. That I can love. That I can think. That I'm just a man. And just a man with more than one tie to my bow," he says, before correcting himself with, "string to my bow", in response to my baffled expression.

So why is he seen as arrogant? Because he was successful, of course. "It is winning. And it is winning and being dignified while winning. And winning with attitude. With style. With charisma. That is the way it was. But that is where the ridicule or the contempt was born," he says, so matter-of-factly it brings tears to my eyes.

It all seems so unfair, because by rights he should be a national hero. Born in London but sent to live with his grandmother in Jamaica until he was two, he returned to England, but when he was eight his mother left to live in America. He says he didn't feel abandoned, more that there was one less person to dodge. He remembers his childhood home as being devoid of furniture, and was almost relieved when his errant behaviour meant he was taken into care, as it meant he could have three meals a day and central heating.

But when he was 16 he was sent to live with his mother in New York and discovered boxing. Eight years later he defeated Nigel Benn for the WBO middleweight title in a famously ferocious fight. He went on to make 19 successful defences, at middleweight and super-middleweight, spending five years as world champion.

He says when he was boxing he didn't mind being seen as arrogant, because it was good box office and he would rather people disliked him than were indifferent. Now he is on TV, it is more important to be liked.

"It has attracted a much different audience, because it is showing you are a son to your mother," alright Chris, "you are a father to your children", there's no stopping him, "you are a husband to your wife." Enough already.

"They don't put you on if people are going to dislike you. They must like you," he says. I'm not sure I agree with him, but he says people must like him because his show is popular. Does he mind if people dislike him?

"I suppose, if someone dislikes me, they dislike me because they believe what the media says, and that makes them someone who is not using their own mind. I know I'm a good man. I know I'm right. I'm not obnoxious or arrogant. In the ring I am, but out of the ring I'm not."

Two years ago he suffered the indignity of being the first person voted out of the Celebrity Big Brother house. That must have been galling?

"I felt... how did I feel about that?", he muses. "I felt, being magnanimous in exiting, or leaving, the house was good. Because I was not voted out. I left. Why did I leave? Because Anthea (Turner) couldn't have handled leaving first. Or being evicted first. How can I prove it? All you have to work out is whether Anthea Turner is more popular than I am. There is the sense," he says triumphantly.

So he sacrificed himself to save Anthea from humiliation? All very noble of him, but then, as he says: "I'm not weak. I'm strong and weak is doing things that would appease people, and weak is not actually speaking the truth. Being strong is speaking the truth." So there you go.

But it's becoming clear that it's not an act with him. This is what he's really like. Or, as he puts it, this is what "society or my environment subliminally manipulates me to think what I ought to be," which I think means he's a product of his background. So what is it that he has been subliminally manipulated to be?

"Strong. Strong to protect. Courageous. Courageous to aspire. Thoughtful. Thoughtful to show your intellect. To show a human condition. Considered gentle," which is good.

'I have been able to achieve all the things that I was supposed to become. I'm everything that I want my children to be." As soon as he says this, his eyes light up. "How do you like that? That is a nice statement." He rolls it around in his head. "Listen to this," he calls to Rachel, his chaperone from publishers HarperCollins who has retreated into the next room. "I'm everything I would want my children to be. Write it down," he tells her.

"How many parents can actually put that to their children? It is a heavy statement." He is clearly quite taken with it. Rachel hands him a piece of paper bearing this wisdom. He looks at it with wonder. "That is awesome. I said this," he says, and he can hardly believe it.

He's so pleased with himself he doesn't seem to hear my next few questions, but I get finally his attention when I ask if he is a role model.

"If you are not thinking, you look at Bruce Forsyth," he says, which seems a little harsh on Brucie. But when people look at him, "they see that I have 19 world championship wins," which I take as a yes. He doesn't use drugs, doesn't smoke, doesn't use bad language, so he's an example to our youngsters. Does he like being a role model?

"I don't want the job; I am the job. I'm not trying to do something; I am doing it." He looks at me as you look at someone who can't see what is in front of them. "Do you think I had a choice in this? I am what I am," he tells me.

"I did what I did not because I wanted to, but because I had to. When I was being beaten in the ring, terribly beaten, hideously beaten, it would have been easy for me to quit. I wanted to quit. But I couldn't, because my integrity would not allow me to. I didn't have a choice."

And, if you cut through all the nonsense he spouts, this seems to be the rub. He is what he is. He isn't putting on a show, he isn't posing; this is what he's like, bowler hat and all. And he's not a bad man. You may think he's a bit of a pratt, but at least he's an honest pratt who thinks he can do some good.

It's easy to mock Chris Eubank. God knows, he makes it easy. But it's hard not to warm to a man who is just being himself. He gives me another crushing handshake as we part, but his attention is already elsewhere. "I'm everything I want my children to be," he reads from that bit of paper. "That is beautiful. That is beautiful," he sighs. And who can argue with that?

Eubank by Chris Eubank (HarperCollins) £18.99