: About Me

I've worked as a scriptwriter, director, presenter, photographer and producer - I'm just basically an all-round media man and seem to have been reasonably successful at it and have worked for the BBC, Shell, Fujitsu-ICL, CISCO, The Co-operative Bank, UK Department of Trade and Industry.

I have also written magazines articles, both technical and non-technical, and have a Masters degree in Photography. I taught photography at University level in Liverpool Chester and Stafford.

For some years I have kept a journal, almost always in Moleskine- I am now on No. 42...... Work from these has been featured in "Zuiderlucht " a monthly Dutch Arts Newspaper for several years. They have also previewed what the editor described as 'my graphic novel for the 21st century'- entitled 'My Imaginary Lives'.

My greatest passion is music: I sing & play guitar - my music is a contamintaed blues!  I have performed my own material at concerts throughout Italy including major festivals such as Etna Blues, Tropea Blues, Trasimeno Blues, Bianco Rosso e Blues, Trescore British Blues Festival, Marco Fiume 'Blues Passion Festival, and Sarteano jazz & Blues  I have also recorded music for film: one short was featured at the Cannes Short Film Festival in 2008, and another UK-based documentary was nominated for a BAFTA in 2009.

I speak fluent Italian. I live in Umbria with my wife Lesley and my pet Bengal, Archie.

For two seasons, I presented a fortnightly radio programme called 'The Blues and Beyond' on www.radioimago.net which is due to go back on air in the near future

I love cooking . . . and eating . . . .  and drinking.

My passion is ...

music particularly guitar, writing, scribbling, photography

I know too much about ...

a million different things which can be useful or interesting: did you know that the drawing of the dormouse in Alice in Wonderland was based on one of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's pet wombats? interesting? entertaining? both?....neither? =:-(

My parents always told me ...

that they never understood me or what I did for a living.....

My childhood ambition ...

to leave home!

My favorite memory ...

getting married in july 2006

Why I write ...

I enjoy it- why else?

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

Brunelleschi's Dome; Buddy Whittington

My first job ...

teaching Meat 1 and the panel beaters- college classes not a band!

My best moment ...

opening Etna Blues to 1300 people on the slopes of live volcano

My inspiration ...

lots of people: Da Vinci; Bucky Pizzarelli; Anais Nin;

Arts & Humanities > Thoughts on Writing Reasons to keep a journal of writing ideas

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Ideas- you’ve got loads of them haven’t you? Sure . . but just like they say about policemen, and buses:- ‘there’s never one around when you need one’. It’s true - you decide that you want to spend an afternoon writing: you feel the need to write, to express yourself, to flex your creative muscles and in that very moment you are confronted with . . . absolutely nothing, a blank canvas so blank it doesn’t invite experimentation: it scares you in a way that is so threatening that your mind becomes a total void and you end up in a state of frustration...

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