Profile

I have no idea about what is in the charts at any given time and my dress sense swings between bohemian/gothic and tragically middle aged. I really like flying boats and my favourite t-shirt features a Catalina. My musical tastes are very eclectic and I'll listen to almost anything as long as it doesn't feature people in unfortunate trousers bashing dustbins together and shouting "yo". There's more chance I will have heard of something if it was written/recorded prior to about 1978; I'm much more likely to listen to the Rolling Stones, The Who or Bob Seger than Snoopy Dog and Piddly Diddly. I quite like Amy Winehouse though, and I understand she is sometimes in the charts! My collection spans early music, classical, classic rock, prog rock and some jazz (but not freeform, which just sounds like 27 people soloing at the same time to me), though I'm not terribly keen on opera. If I'm miserable, listening to the Doobie Brothers cheers me up, for reasons I can't quite fathom, but for which I blame my father (well, it must be someone's fault). I'm one of the few former members of CAMRA to have neither a beard nor a chunky fisherman's sweater and my favourite beers include Wychwood Hobgoblin and Fullers London Pride. One of the most enjoyable places I've been in recent years was the Bristol showroom in Kensington, where I had a nice chat with one of the chaps who developed the Bristol Fighter (interesting piece of trivia that you won't find in the brochure: you can flick your cigarette ash out the window at 150mph because the windows have been designed to open and close easily at any speed). I dislike mobile phones because I can't hear polyphonic ringtones properly, and I occasionally smoke a pipe. I have a long-term dream of finding and owning my late grandfather's 1966 Rolls-Royce MkI Silver Shadow and actually using it rather than leaving it to gather dust and leak vital fluids in a garage somewhere. However, at the moment I drive a battered but charismatic 1967 Triumph Herald 1200 convertible. When I'm not driving my car or smoking my pipe, I like randomly swearing at things, inventing bad-taste TV programmes and watching British comedy - especially sketch comedy and satire - and I'm currently completely addicted to Horrible Histories (yes, at my age). Some people say I'm a little eccentric, but the truth is I'm more than a little likely to be somewhere on the autistic spectrum. I really don't know why that surprises people.