For Christmas 2008 I was in a hotel and I was bouncing about news concerning my novel Binaries.

In August, I'd sent copies of three chapters of my novel to 10 agencies.  

You only need one to show interest though.  And one did.  They wanted the whole novel to read though before making a final decision (I knew that was par for the course).  They'd get back to me after four weeks.




They never did.

It was 2009.  Publishing agencies were collapsing.  The development of ebooks via Kindle, Kobo etc meant that many agencies were uncertain as to their future.

Were book publishing groups going to go the same way record companies have gone?

More in 2009:

I asked one of my PhD supervisors about the fact that interviewing someone is one of the most powerful things that can happen to that person.  I wondered if I should talk about that in my PhD.

He said I don't need to worry about that.

Privately I felt I should.  Four years later finishing my PhD I was right.  It's now essential.  No more academic ivory tower.

But some still want to stay in that protective tower.  I'll talk more about that later.  Like what happened in Vancouver, Canada

More in 2009:

From the 4th April 2009 I had my first art exhibition.  17 of the pieces I created since late 2007 were there.

But then Liz got a call from the Royal Exchange Theatre.  They had a gap in their art exhibitions.  

So from the 1st Sept. 2009 I had my second exhibition at that theatre.  Their marketing of that department was amazing.

Radio and television interviews...

I got the impression that their workman sorting out the exhibition pieces wasn't too impressed with my artwork.  But then, looking back some of them weren't perfect I know.  Some I redid/repainted.  Some can't get better.  They're almost perfect as they stand.

'The Raven Steals the Light' is one.  That's an art piece where I felt I'd got everything right.

That picture is taken from a very surreal Native American fictional story.

And that story was in a book I read over the shoulder of a woman on a train in Vancouver.  She either didn't know I was reading what she was reading or she didn't care!

If you do an internet search for the story you'll find it.

I'm waiting.  Go on.  Search for it.

Yeah?  Found it?

You see how surreal that story is?

I had another art exhibition in March 2010.  I developed new art pieces including my first using a Pop Art style of painting combined with fragments of CDs.  This piece was called 'The Dolphin' and was shaped around a poem I'd written of the same name.  You can actually see the painting and read the poem on my Life Cycle Media art website. 

In 2010 I also created a new art piece called 'We Are Temporary' using fragments of CDs and DVDs.  You can see photographs showing the development of 'We Are Temporary' on the Life Cycle Media Facebook page.

In 2010 I also began creating the art work 'Endless Repetition i' - Now the 'i' in the title is quite obvious considering that the CD fragments are arranged to make an image of an eye but...

Anyone know what the title 'Endless Repetition' comes from?  I've done three art pieces using that name.

I'll give you one clue.  It's related to the general shape I've created using the CD fragments.  I'm sure you didn't expect I'd be giving you a crossword puzzle at this point.

Something else I started intensely doing at this time.

No, it wasn't about getting involved with UK politics.  You can't blame me for that.

The rest of my PhD of course!  I started actively interviewing people.  You've probably read some of the articles I've posted on this website that show that I'm very skilled at interviewing.

Largely because I like people.

Most of them anyway...

So where to go?  What to do?

Many of us feel that several times throughout our lives

When I finished my Chemistry degree I felt so aimless.

It wasn't helped by a recession that meant many recruitment doors were closed.  So I did a Diploma from the Institute of Personnel Management.

I learnt how to ethically manage and had a placement with a company.

This company's Personnel Officer was going on holiday so they needed someone to fill her place.

So I did.

I found that lessons in managing people are different from actually managing but I enjoyed that difference 

and so did the staff at the company.

During that course I met Liz.  Thus began a link that transcended the limited definitions of friendship, relationship and family. 

She heard me sing and trained me to sing better... 

After the Diploma I got the job working at the industrial chemical company.  

But the evenings were special.  Singing for the different bands.

It was personally a confusing time on several levels.  I poored my thoughts into the poetry I wrote.

When I read them now I realise just how angry I was.  How confused I was...

And when I was writing poetry in hospital...

How frightened I was.




When I left the university in 2007 I wasn't scared.  I felt so free.

It seemed that all my creative thoughts were firing at once.

For the first time I began rapidly creating art pieces.  'The Sparrow and the Squirrel'.  'Trinity'.  'The Waterfall'.  'Winter Solstice'.  One straight after the other.  'Orca'.  'Within My Arms'.  'Face to Face'.  'The Venetian'.

Some contained my poetry as well.  It was poetry that was as good as anything I'd written before.  They were often epic - spread over several pages.

And then my second novel.  Binaries.

I'd so little time to write it while at university.  I had written about three chapters in about three years.

From late 2007 to late 2008 I wrote the other 12 chapters to finish the book.

In that time I'd also created 17 large art pieces.

I made a application for my first art exhibition.  I wrote to publishing agencies about my novel.

In late 2008 I re-started my PhD.

2009 would become an adventure... 

Funny how we remember things.

My first recollection is from before I could walk.  I was in a walker (a four wheeled frame with fabric in the middle for the baby to stand/sit upright in.  Then they could move themselves around with their hanging feet).  

I was near the front door of my parents house watching my dad making a frame across the front of the driveway.  I didn't know what he was making but, now, looking back, I recognise it as a fence made from with raw wood planks around the edge with chicken wire in the middle.  Now I don't know if it was the same memory but I can recall moving around using that walker and then one of the wheels went into the flower bed.  I started to topple over towards a rose bush and...


That's all I can remember.


There are lots of other memories.  Some are obviously connected to some major event (one like getting my finger trapped in car door when I was about four - I needed stitches for that one!) but others I can't for any reason see why I should recall them!


I'm sure you have the same sort of memories.


I remember designing imaginary album covers for fictional bands!


I can recall the exams my parents put me through when I was about 11 for, I think, four different grammar schools.  One was so stressful it had me in tears (that was the one I ended up going to!).


 My teens.  I can remember how confused I was.  


I can recall drawing my first portrait (of myself using a mirror - I still have it!) and that started me drawing more portraits of photographs of women in various magazines.


My parents wanted me to go to a university.  When I had an unconditional offer  (I was in whatever my 'A' level results were) to go to York University that was the place I wanted to go to.

Because I had fond memories of York when my parents took me to visit there as a child. 

I also wanted to change my first name.  I did that on my first day at that university.  It was years before I had it made legally official.

But that's another story.

I was hard working during my first year.

I also had my first serious girlfriend.

From the second year I became famous apparently as the guy who went from being studious to being a bit of a ... rogue I suppose you'd call it.

Skiving out of lectures.  Playing pool at 3 in the morning.  Getting stoned... Photocopying other people's lecture notes... gatecrashing parties. 

My closest friend at that time was also a bit of a rogue.  He and I stole stupid things like benches.  Climbed on university walkways and the buildings' roofs. Stealing library books (got returned after the exams!).

That friend is now a senior accountant.

I also made a large painting (for the first time!) and it was from a photograph of an amazing guitarist called Daniel Ash (from Bauhaus).  I painted it on my work desk (well, I wasn't using it for work).

Amazing how life can change.  And it changed so much after I left that university.

I wonder sometimes that I may have done too many things but...

My friends and family care a lot about me and I care a lot about them.  I love my closest friend, Liz, who inspires me to be so much more.

I love singing and those that hear me love it as well.  But nothing seems to really happen.  I was in one band and we were invited to play at Ronnie Scot's jazz club in London... but then the drummer broke the band up.

Then I was writing and recording music with a guy who had been in a band that had been signed.  Our music was great... but he had had enough so nothing happened.

I was in another band that was exciting and different.  We played at the Witchwood.  A member of different band saw me perform and he was mesmerised by my performance.  My closest friend had booked gigs for us but the guitarists only had bitchy remarks about her... The bass player and his girlfriend (he also had a wife) stirred up problems in the band and it broke up.  And, unfairly, Liz was their scapegoat.

My next band just played covers but I wanted more than that.  The new bass player didn't.  Then during one gig the lead guitarist left the stage part way through a song and that broke the band up.

The drummer for both bands is an amazing drummer and guitarist.  We recorded several original songs together (CoRuiM HiDe)... but nothing happened.  Record companies only wanted touring bands.

During that time I did a job in a chemical plant.  Within a couple of years I was promoted from a works chemist to the QC Manager.  I was planning a purpose built lab for my department.  Then the owner of the company took my budget away on a whim and fired the company's managing director that I was getting on with.  

My grandma died around that time.  Soon after I started having difficulties with my balance.  I went to my doctors and it was initially thought I had an inner ear infection.  When my balance was actually getting worse I had several brain scans.  A specialist in neurology told me dispassionately that I had Multiple Sclerosis.  I was on a drip for a week.  Two nurses taught me how to walk again.

People at my chemical company didn't seem to care.  I asked to be given less responsibilities and suggested that I became the Quality Assurance Officer.  One other manager assumed I'd been demoted.  Eventually it was offered that I take a small pension to leave the company.  I eagerly took that.

Then I took another degree in media studies at Salford University.  I made two short films.  One I wrote (The Devil's Ring) and the other (Ascension Day) written by Liz.  Apparently, The Devil's Ring was repeatedly shown on Channel M. I directed bands playing in a recording studio and was complimented for that.  But I knew that since I was in my thirties I'd have to compete with people ten years younger than me.

So I took an MA in Gender Studies at the suggestion of a lecturer at Salford.  I delayed that by a year because I was writing my first novel.  It was inspired by a short story Liz wrote.  She'd passed it to me asking if I could expand upon it.  I don't why she did that but I created a novel from that short story with her blessing.

 During that time I started going out with a girl.  That was a weird one.  I was besotted by her and troubled by her.  We fell out just before I began my MA at the University of Leeds but didn't break up.

I began writing my second novel at that time, inspired by the Devil's Ring short film I wrote and directed during my media studies degree.

During my part time MA, I did my first presentation using PowerPoint and a film clip where, while I was presenting, I seemed to be having a conversation with a recording of myself on the screen (yes, this was before the Doctor Who episode 'Blink').

This MA changed my life.  I became a more even person, understanding myself more.

Immediately after my MA I began a part time PhD.  At the same time my girlfriend moved in with me again but it wasn't to be.  While I made complaints to the university about some of my work being mis-marked (I won) my girlfriend was being bullied at work.  She eventually got erroneously fired.  Around that time she began having a virtual affair online.  Not surprisingly we broke up.

I found out the company she worked for re-hired her and the manager apologised.  I know that the company should have paid her thousands in compensation but they fobbed her off ... However it wasn't my problem anymore.

A year after she phoned me to say sorry.  Apparently she'd had counselling.

The PhD wasn't going well.  I was supposed to have two supervisors.  One left the university and after three months I found out.  The other had lots of behind the scenes problems so she didn't guide me a lot.  After two years I had my  50 page assessment document examined by two academics.  They felt was wasn't on track and felt my PhD was still 'provisional' but promised to give me feedback why.  I got the feedback three months late and only 8 lines long.

I left that university.

By that time it was late 2007.  I turned 40.  I began eagerly making art pieces using fragments of CDs and DVDs plus I turned my attention to completing that second novel....