Born in York. After running away from Oriel College Oxford and working as a deckhand, a bouncer, a photo-love novel model, a pot washer and a double-glazing salesman, he realised he was unemployable and turned to writing.

He has been blamed by the New York Times for being the deadbeat dad of the 'metrosexual' (now something big in advertising) and appears to have been the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's manic cameo appearance in the movie Sleep With Me as a party guest obsessed with the homoerotics of the classic Eighties blockbuster Top Gun.