Those words were delivered by my secondary school maths teacher, Mr Taylor, in a corridor one day during my sixth form years. The circumstances which prompted this glowing testimonial are long since lost to me, but I did write the quote down immediately, and kept it, presumably in the hope that it was a prophetic prediction of my intended career as a spin doctor of one sort or another.

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​I was born at a very early age in Bristol, England, in 1969, and have persistently refused to grow up ever since. I was the eldest of my parents' three children, and still am. I have not yet lived in the South West of England all my life.

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While some people are fortunate enough to be born with a silver spoon in their mouth, I suspect I was born with a plastic picnic fork stuck in my backside.

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Very early aspirations to be a weatherman were soon replaced by a desire to become a journalist, which started with me - encouraged by my grandfather - hand-writing a series of 'family' newspapers, Bane's Echo, The Newland Press and The Perspective (my broadsheet!). I fulfilled that desire after leaving school. I completed a 36-week 'pre-entry' college course before spending aorund 12 years as a newspaper reporter before 'going straight' and becoming a media relations officer for the police, where I earned a number of awards and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Diploma. I continue to work in public relations.

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Married, one child. But that didn't work, so I thought I would try a grown woman. (Terrible pun, but couldn't resist). I couldn't find a woman in the UK who would have me (I am the man of every insomniac woman's dreams), so I looked further afield and found a French-Canadian woman in Montreal who was mad enough to give it a go (language was no barrier, as I am fluid in French).

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I often feel as if I've navigated through life being burdened with the Sadim touch, which is the opposite of the Midas touch. I do occasionally get delusions of adequacy, but on these occasions I take a lucid interval until the moment passes. These days, my idea of danger is to suck a pasta twist against the thread.

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From a very early age, I harboured dreams of holding in my hand a paperback book I had written. Over the years, I've approached, and been rejected by, several agents and publishers. Then I discovered Lulu.com, which enabled me to self-publish without breaking the bank. While my literary efforts are not in any danger of troubling the best-seller lists, I can put my hand on my heart and truly - and proudly - say that copies of my books have sold all over the world, even if not in anything like the quantity required to enable me to quit the day job and live the dream of writing full-time.

 

This website has been created to promote my publishing endeavours.​ I'm not as prolific as I would like to be, partly because writing is an insular, time-consuming past-time, and also because, while I am not short of ideas and scenarios, structure and plotting does not come naturally to me, not matter how much I dearly wish they would.

 

When I am not writing or slaving away at the day job in order to pay the bills, I have a wife and profoundly autistic son to keep me occupied; I am an enthusiastic field hockey player and I am also slowly teaching myself magic with the aim of one day performing in public. 

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I consider myself a flawed genius, with a bright future behind me, the main flaw being that I have still yet to discover where my true genius lies.​ In everything I do, I always aim to please. It's not my fault that I just happen to be such a rotten shot. I am a firm believer that laughter is the best medicine.