Ask HN: Aspiring developer seeks professional advice

Quick backstory: 1. I'm from the UK, when I was doing A levels, I was performing as a musician all over the UK, which made a ton of money (relatively) at the time for me, and I thought it'd last forever. It didn't. I let my A level grades totally slip, and...

2. In this time I've built and sold several online businesses which I won't detail in order to stay anonymous, but let's just say I take my self-education very seriously and have developed serious entrepreneurial balls. I spent all the damn money and let my nut run out. My fault.

3. I'm screwed, 20 years old, and have bad A levels..what do I do? I'm damn good with computers, dabbled in it from time to time and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I'll do Computer Science as a degree and go into being a programmer, with the added benefit to my future employers of being a pretty good copywriter - who gets results analytically.

4. Damn I have bad grades. I can only get into london met university, which doesnt have an excellent reputation.

I'll have to make the best of this situation no doubt, but my biggest question to you is, if you were in my situation, with a stellar track record for a 20 year old, but bad academic prospects, and being in the first year of a degree with THE bottom-rated university of the UK..

what would YOU do, in order to get into a career as a developer?