| My hair colour: | I suppose it's what people call 'mousy' sort of blondy brown, although mice come in many shades . . .That's funny, I've been drawing mice in shades for years. . . | |
| My eye colour: | Grey blue | |
| My shoe size: | 9 | |
| My star sign: | Aquarius | |
| My favourite book when child: | Too many to be too specific, but if I must... Before reading age, Thomas the Tank Engine, Henry Pig goes Visiting, it's hard to remember. After reading age, The Magic Pudding by Norman Lyndsay. Stig of the Dump by Clive King. 'Paddington', 'William',(my mum's old books,) 'Narnia', Winnie the Pooh, and of course 'The Beano' and 'Wham!' I also read Enid Blyton with no ill effects, though I hold no affection for her stories now, unlike the aforementioned classics. |
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| My favourite fictional character: | The Bash Street Kids, Eeyore.( Aaargh! I'm forty years old and only this second while typing the name have I realised why he's called Eeyore! ) | |
| Books that inspired me to become a writer: | Not really relevant as I started as an illustrator, I was pushed into writing as a way of providing stuff for me to illustrate! I never had an ambition in that direction until that point. So, what inspired me to illustrate? Well, I always liked Comics, Warner Bros cartoons, James Thurber's drawings, Punch cartoons, Eric Gurney, and Thelwell when I was young. I still like the former but not the latter quite so much. . . I liked people who made me laugh, I was quite good at making people laugh so I suppose that's why I ended up doing funny stuff. | |
| My favourite author: | Children's: Who do I admire? Still alive: Spike Milligan, ( a major hero) Russell Hoban. David Henry Wilson's writing style is an example I would aspire to, and Margaret Mahy. Not alive: Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, oh, and Dr Seuss of course. My favourite Illustrator: Leo Baxendale, ( The original Bash Street Kids, Wham comic, etc) Dudley Watkins,( Desparate Dan ) Whoever the artist who did Minnie the Minx and Beryl the Peril in the late seventies was. Quentin Blake, James Marshall, Dr Seuss, George Herriman, (Krazy Kat) Mervyn Peake. Edward Lear, Edward Ardizone, Lucy Cousins. |
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| My ideal reading position: | Sitting up in bed, or lounging on the sofa. | |
| My usual means of marking a place in a book: | Whatever happens to be within reach, Tesco receipt, bit of tissue. Or I just put the book down open, face down. I NEVER fold the corner down! | |
| My favourite time of year: | No major preference but winter can be very atmospheric and beautiful if you are in the right place. i.e. North Norfolk coast, not Croydon. | |
| My favourite time of day: | Morning, once I've had a cup of tea. | |
| My best time for working: | Afternoons probably because I'm kind of warmed up by then, but any time of day is ok. | |
| The first piece of writing I was paid for was: | A series of postcards for Gallery Five in about 1978. | |
| My favourite TV show: | Don't watch much but I enjoy Frasier and Never Mind the Buzzcocks, its a generation thing. . . oh yeah, and Match of the Day and the Test Match. | |
| My favourite actor: | Michael Ripper. Who? Well if you've ever seen any Hammer Horror films he's often the mysterious landlord or the first corpse, or both. In my student days,we used to try to spot him in old british films on the TV. He's ubiquitous. Otherwise actors don't make much impression on me. | |
| My favourite song: | I could make a list about a mile long, but I have to go for " With A Girl Like You" by the Troggs. I just love the sound. I think it's those old valve compressors they used to use. If Wet Wet Wet go near this one they're dead! | |
| My favourite savory food: | Bacon, smoked streaky. Preferably from Portwines, darling. | |
| My favourite sweet food: | Home made ice cream. | |
| My typical bedtime is: | Since the kids errupted into our lives, 10 o'clock is late. Tired? UUUUURGH!. . . | |
| My favourite year of childhood (age 4-16): | About 8-9 I guess. I lived in Luton, and there were about six of us all the same age in my street. We would combine our Scalextric into one huge circuit, that sort of thing. | |
| My mousemat design: | Easynet ( ISP ) freeby, its got fish on it. | |
| The tidiest place in my home is: | The spare room or the loft. Anywhere we're not. | |
| The untidiest place in my home is: | My studio. | |
| The working tool I would least like to do without: | My 0.13 Isograph. (pen ) and my Mac 7100 + software. Although I'd do without the latter if I could replace it with a new Mac running a G3 chip at 300+ mhz. . . Prepare to eat Mac dust, Intel! | |
| The creature comfort I would most unwillingly go without: | My nail scissors. Boring but true. | |