Nine years ago, I left my home in Britain and came to the United States in search of adventure.

I’m one part ambitious and driven, one part passionate and creative, and one part laid back and wise cracking.

When I was six, I put on a Batman costume and leapt from a sofa believing I could fly. I landed on the edge of a coffee table. I learned a valuable lesson that day about gravity.

But I was not deterred. A quarter of a century later, I did a catapult take-off from an aircraft carrier. Take that, gravity!

I'm a journalist, professor, author, screenwriter, and occasional TV pundit (everyone else with a British accent is on TV so why not me...)

Toppling tyrants.

{ Screen } Woody Allen, Blue Valentine, The Secret in Their Eyes, Wonder Boys, Requiem for a Dream, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Lives of Others, The Remains of the Day, 28 Days Later, The Godfather, This is England, The Professional, Animal Kingdom, In the Name of the Father, The Pianist, Queen Margot, Withnail and I, The Elephant Man.

{ TV } Rome, True Blood, Deadwood, Mad Men, Friday Night Lights, Breaking Bad, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, Fawlty Towers.

{ Music } The Lumineers, Nick Cave, The Libertines, Shins, Arctic Monkeys, Mae, The National, Wolf Parade, Deer Tick, Phoenix, Sea Bear, Girl Talk, Elbow, Pinback, Leonard Cohen, Simon & Garfunkel, The Nightwatchman, Cat Stevens, Throw Me The Statue, Talvin Singh, Apparat & Ellen Allien.

{ Books } Just Kids, The Road, Netherland, Under the Banner of Heaven, Middlesex, Sherlock Holmes, The Magus, Gatsby, The Ebony Tower, 1984, New York Review of Books, The Moral Animal, Schindler's Ark, Economist, GQ, US Weekly. Just finished The Sense of an Ending.

{ Food } Patriotism means I have to list Britain's national dish: Indian food. But actually I love all food. I'm a moveable feaster.

Hmm...there are Seven Virtues and only six slots available, so either chastity or temperance will have to go.

Brilliant versus awesome, jumpers versus sweaters, and aluminium versus aluminum.

At an art museum or a dive bar: museums for the drinking, and dive bars for the art.

I own an enormous landed estate in England, named Pemberley.

You were born in 1970 in the Catskill mountains, your dad's a Norwegian clothes manufacturer, and your mom's a Jewish antiques dealer.

Oh, no, wait...that's Jennifer Connelly.

Just kidding, I'm not really that picky.

I'd love to meet someone smart, creative, who sees the funny side.

Call me old-fashioned, but I'd rather escape from OKC and get to know you over a glass of wine.