Witty, passionate and cultured (like a good yoghurt). Likes real ale, films, art and books - and tattered sf paperbacks.

Likes wandering around strange towns in search of charity shops and photo ops. Invite me to see yours.

A little shy, though most people who knew me would laugh at that.

A friend once told me I was quality. I wasn't sure which quality, although I thought of Quality Streets. In which case bagsy I'm the green triangle.

I'm working too hard - but then I teach my hobbies (films and books, usually science fiction, but also crime fiction) so it's hard to find down time. I seem to have temporarily abandoned my local, whilst I go in search of real ale elsewhere. I dream of being able to go to the pub without a book to read for research purposes. I need to get back to doing the crossword.

I write - the odd bit of fiction and even odder poem, but I've my name on spines in bookshops near you, and publish a reasonable amount of nonfiction. I'm currently failing to working on the articles and trying to finish a book.

being there
listening
empathising
finishing the crossword
cutting through noise to what's important for other people

My t-shirts. More recently, that I've lost weight. It was also waist coats, but I've stopped wearing them with the weight loss.

I'm a Philip K. Dick man at heart, but I've read everything so that leaves me just the rest of sf. I'm reading a load of seventies stuff now for research. I like Reginald Hill and Philip Pullman, and Aidan Chambers. I've read my way through Hesse and Dostoevsky and the beats like William Burroughs, Jack Keroauc and Allen Ginsberg, and Ken Kesey, Hermann Hesse, Richard Brautigan, Tom Robbins.

Movies - very little sf, though I quite like Soderbergh's Solaris as well as Tarkovsky's. I like American indie and Coen Brothers, Derek Jarman, Todd Haynes and Kevin Smith, Peter Greenaway I guess - but also screwball comedy, Hitchcock, film noir, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd (can't do Chaplin)... Happy to watch most things and will get something out of it. Let's see: 28 Days Later, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, All About My Mother, American Splendor, Barfly, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, The Big Lebowski, Bird With the Crystal Plumage, The Birds, Blue Velvet, Bound, Boys Don't Cry, Brazil, Brick, Brighton Rock, Capturing the Friedmans, Celia, Chasing Amy, City of God, Clerks, A Cottage on Dartmoor, Crumb, Cube, Dead Man's Shoes, Dead Poet's Society, Delicatessan, The Dish, Dogma, Dougal and the Blue Cat, Dune, Eating Out, Empire of the Sun, Far from Heaven, Fargo, Four Lions, Gattaca, Ginger Snaps, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, High Noon, His Girl Friday, I'm Not There, Impostor, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jersey Girl, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Last Days of Chez Nous, The Lavender Hill Mob, Law of Desire, Live Flesh, The Living End, Mallrats, The Man in the White Suit, The Man Who Cried, The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Man Who Wasn't There, Metropolis, Mr. Brooks, Napoleon Dynamite, Night of the Hunter, North by Northwest, Nowhere, Once Upon a Time in America, Pi, Primer, Reykjavik 101, Roger and Me, Rope, A Scanner Darkly, Serenity, Shallow Grave, Shaun of the Dead, Silent Running, A Simple Man, Solaris, Soylent Green, Strangers on a Train, Strictly Ballroom, Suspiria, Tail Lights Fade, Taxi, Taxi 2, The Thing From Another World, Tideland, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Touch of Evil, True Romance, Vulgar, Wings of Desire, Withnail and I
Music - singer-songwriter, progrock, classical, blues - no taste really but willing to have a go. Bob Dylan, Gong, Tom Robinson, Yes, Eels, Crash Test Dummies, Pink Floyd, Seth Lakeman, Tangerine Dream, Bach, Dvorak, Robert Johnson, The Living End, Kitchens of Distinction, Kingmaker, Placebo, Blur, Pulp.

I love to cook and I'll eat anything - a soft spot for Thai and an irrational urge to eat KFC, which usually turns out to be a great disappointment. I should stop one of these.

hot wireless sets
aspirin tablets
the sandpaper slides of used matchboxes
something that might have been castor oil
books
real ale

what I should be doing instead of being online.

down my local, chatting to mates

I'm frightened to let other people in

You want to come in.