As a child, even among children lacking in all distinction, I stood out as a child lacking in more distinction than all the rest.
As a young teenager I was very well behaved until I met one of my best friends Sarah.
As an older teenager I managed to get into as much trouble as possible.
As an early 20 something year old I entered Leeds University, where I learned to tolerate a few spoilt fools, make a messy fool of myself and make a mess in chemistry a lab.
I met Gareth and Phil eight years ago, as well as a huge group of other great friends sharing a common love of good music, good times, travelling and story telling, in a part time job we shared in a place called the Elbowroom, Leeds, a nighclub/bar/restaurant/pool room.
After successfully lowering myself into extreme depths of poverty through earning a degree, I worked as a business training officer in Leeds City.
Noticing that in office life, with its regimented tea breaks and excitment over a new brand of instant crap coffee being placed in the vending machine, that there just wasn’t enough chaos around me. I decided to rectify the situation and moved to Osaka, Japan.
View on my street in Osaka, Japan
Living slap bang in the middle of a Hard-Boilded Neon Wonderland, surrounded by visions of ‘Blade Runner-esque' characters and scenery, I nurtured my love of observations, social experiments and writing/photography.
After three years of awe inspiring concrete jungle I desperatelyy needed to smell the grass, gaze at stars and see the horizon again. The stars in Osaka could have been wiped out of the sky and nobody would notice. And yet, people always noticed when I was wearing odd coloured socks or when the label was sticking out of my knickers.
Osaka, Japan
Having spent almost every penny I have ever earned throughout my working life on travel, to practice my photography skills, I headed out to Australia, to really cap off my inability to save money by completing the oddball ‘As Cheeky as you Can’t’ adventure and write a book about the eight and a half months of social experiment without funds in a modern world.
My main hobby is to work my way through a "Things to do before I die" list that I mentally compiled a number of years ago. I'm doing well but the list keeps getting longer. I like to try most things once, although there are a number of things I will never do again, such as: eating sea urchin; drinking 20/20; a sommersault attempt; the boxing day dip (running into the North sea on Boxing day after being hosed down by a fireman); wearing a G string whilst riding a camel; climbing mount Fuji,......... There are a number of surprising things I'd love to do again: eating bread which was cooked directly on a pile of blazing cow poo; walking on hot coals; scrubbing the deck of a sailing vessel; waking up to the sound of a monkey having very loud sex...........And there are a number of things I don't ever want to do again but have no choice in, such as: the tea ceremony; going to work; brushing my hair; eating healthily; ironing; dusting; sitting through a Japanese speech; watching people eat with their mouths open; cleaning toilets the way my mother once lovingly taught me............. The next thing on my list is write a book.
Incidentally, I had never added 'Give up all my possessions and travel 25,000kms starting with nothing but a bin bag' to my list. Sometimes things just slip though and find themselves at the top of a list of priorities without my sanity having a chance to protest.
My old room mate, the lovely Jamie, posing in front of the train station I travelled too and from everyday to work, for three years
My one weakness is books, I am an avid reader and I like to have myself surrounded in a number of them. What books can offer in terms of inspiration, escape, knowledge, history, education and humour is immeasurable. Travellers often swap books, leave books behind for others to pick up and pass on again. Conversations about books are held around camp fires and in communal areas in hostels. Book club members around the world sit around bottles of merlot enjoying stimulating discussions on the book of the month. Books are read out in community settings to encourage thought and debate. Books have inspired me, moved me, encouraged me, thrilled me, made me angry, sad, happy, scared or have made me spit out tea from my nose in laughter. I would like more people around the world to have access to these tools of thought. 
