Welcome to my online world. I've been on and around the Internest (sic) since it was in short trousers (1994, if you were wondering), so I've seen quite a bit. Most of it emanates from pornstars (all of whom seem to know me on a first name basis), strange, yet equally familiar people in Nigeria who apparently want to give me money, and people who want to know if I'm interested in possessing a big new rod that will enable me to experience the kiss of a womb. I was born in the suburban hellhole that is Epsom in 1973, an age when computers took up whole rooms, and Internet was where a Leeds United player tried to put the ball. I fled northwards to Lancaster in 1992, where three years of applied beer-tasting were rewarded with a piece of paper that claims I know stuff about politics. For the last decade or so, I've been scratching a living in the armpit of popular culture as a journalist, writing for the likes of Publishing News (where I did 4 years on the staff, and met many people, some very dear, some less so), the Radio Times, Private Eye, The Oldie, the Spectator, Literary Review, the New Statesman and Crescendo and Jazz Music, not to mention the odd stint on the Independent's Pandora diary column. In addition, I've appeared on BBC Radios 2, 3, 4 and 5 as an 'expert' on various subjects including the state of book retailing, the Nigel Molesworth books and Dudley Moore's jazz piano playing. I also have a habit of cropping up on BBC Radio Norfolk whenever I visit Norwich market to buy sausages. In December 2001, I handed in my notice at PN, having persuaded Atlantic Books to pay me to write the complete and utter history of the record industry. It must have been good, because they then paid me to write the complete and utter history of light entertainment, which came out in 2008. I'm now working on my third book, a biography of Les Dawson, one of my comic heroes. I live just slightly west of the easternmost point of the British Isles with my wife, daughter, dog and four adopted open-reel tape recorders.