The potted one is that I grew up in Sheffield, moved to London as a teenage runaway in 1980 and have lived there ever since, spent 18 months with the band ABC for the duration of their 'How To Be a Zillionaire' album, started writing for The Face in 1982 and have been writing for publications ever since.

There's an unfinished book called Talk Trash to Me that tells the inside story about being part of the cognoscenti on the club, music, fashion and drug scenes in 80s London, which should have been published in 2000 and, embarrassingly, is still advertised on Amazon. I will return to Talk Trash in the not too distant future, and not just because I'm still, technically, under contract to Simon & Schuster. No, it's because there has been a gratifying amount of renewed interest in me over the intervening years (along with great surprise that I'm still alive) and I would be a fool to ignore this ongoing fascination for all things retro that continues unabated. And I'd like to set the record straight before it gets set in stone or the modern equivalent, Wikipedia. 

Meanwhile, I am concentrating on my current project about which I'm very excited: a book about the vice trade. More news to follow....