Scribbling and scratching on the paper…

Over and above what we laughably call the professional stuff (writer, director, film maker etc to ad nauseam) I’m very much a product of two different aspects of a somewhat unusual upbringing.

Born in Nottingham in ’67 (‘the year of Sergeant Pepper and Are you experienced?’) I spent my first 15 years mostly in the North of England so I guess I’m hard wired and core-coded to like Mushy Peas and Corned Beef Sandwiches, hard rock music, off-kilter comedy and big dumb films with big cool guns. 

Having moved to South Africa in ’82 I came of age and somewhat more slowly to a better understanding of the world during South Africa’s transition to legitimate (if still troubled) democracy. I now identify as emphatically more African than as English - even if I still can’t shake the Last of the Summer Wine vowel sounds and a semi-annual instinct to buy a denim jacket and cut off the sleeves.

I suspect this odd mixture of the frozen north and the extremely deep south makes me somewhat hard to pigeon hole, and am assured it makes me an extremely irritating conversationalist at the poker table.

Having grown up reading by the light of the street light outside a Chorley window when I was supposed to be asleep, I still read probably 40 – 50 books a year, almost all unashamedly pulp/genre fiction. I am seldom troubled by the accusation of embracing anything approaching literature. 

If I’m not at my desk writing – with all the Tea making, toilet visiting and other random distractions that suggests, you’ll usually find me reading, watching the goggle box (and googlebox). If not, , you’ll probably find me at a Poker table - irritating the arse off people for fun and very occasional profit.