I'm not sure what look I was going for, but I'm pretty sure I didn't achieve it. The shirt's Armani, £3.50 from a charity shop. I wuz robbed.
Sadly, all these photos are genuine, and were taken without the aid of funhouse mirrors. But I've been told I look much better in real life. No, really.
Click on each one to open a larger version in a new window.
August 2002.
My wedding day!
Or perhaps not. Sadly I've never married, but this was taken by a friend who insisted it could come in handy if I ever receive any unwelcome female attention on the internet - I just show this photo and claim I'm already spoken for. The one flaw in the plan is of course that there's no such thing as unwelcome female attention on the internet.
July 2002.
A brotherly moment at Colchester Zoo on my birthday, in front of the sign telling you not to feed the giraffes. Hey, if they don't want you feeding the giraffes, they shouldn't put so many leafy bushes nearby. I'm the prat in the hat, as Dr Seuss would say.
December 2002.
In Munich, on one hour's sleep, trying to blend in. And failing.
January 2003.
Filled with new-found confidence from the completion of a play, I decided I ought to look more like Barton Fink. Or perhaps John Cusack in Bullets Over Broadway. And it would've worked too if I hadn't flared my nostrils when the flash went off.
February 2003.
The axeman cometh.
February 2003.
Having arrived home from my night job as a cat burglar, I posed for a photo for next month's Crimewatch.
Summer 1974.
Hand over the cash, I've got a dog to feed.
March 2003.
The more photogenic members of my family - my two cats. Oscar on the left and Chloe on the right.
December 2002.
A webcam picture. I think I look quite cuddly.
April 2003.
In front of the piranha tank at London Aquarium. I'm sure I didn't really look this stupid, so I blame the photographer's lack of skill. I won't be taking her out again.
May 2003.
Drinking tea in a Welsh launderette. As you do.
May 2003.
Singlehandedly fixing my friend Paula's motorhome. A feat made all the more remarkable by the fact that I know nothing about the workings of the internal combustion engine. But I can hold a pair of pliers with complete authority.
May 2003.
At Caerphilly Castle with some woman. I forget her name.
June 2003.
Brrrrr... this photo gives me the willies. I was asked to submit a headshot for a playwrights' website, so I came up with this. It's the equivalent of the novelist's dust jacket shot. There's something about the clean-cut smugness which I find genuinely disturbing.
July 2003.
Colchester Zoo, one year on. I'm not claiming to know these people - I just agreed to pose with them out of pity. I may be wearing the same hat as last year (black never goes out of fashion), but I didn't go near the giraffes this time. And it wasn't me who fed the paper bag to the goat either.
August 2003 - The Isles of Scilly.
On holiday with my pal Helen. The top two photos were taken shortly after arrival, in the throes of sleep deprivation after having driven down to Cornwall through the night. Please don't stare at the bags under my eyes. Bottom left is me with a plant. And as for bottom right, well I'm sure Helen's boyfriend won't have a problem with her being pictured on the internet with some bloke's arm around her. He knows we're just friends. And I'm sure he's not a violent man. So I'm not worried. Much.
September 2003.
The most interesting thing about this picture, aside from the fact that shaving was clearly far too much trouble, and I look like a tramp in a music shop, is that it features my cuddly koala, which I've owned for 29 years. That's how sad I am.
January 2003.
I was born for facial hair.
Note: Sadly, dear fatty Osk died on 12th January 2004.
February 2004 - Dallas, Texas.
Staying with my sister in the land of the free. Top left is me trying to look unloved in front of a Valentines Day balloon display at the Galleria Mall. Top right is me drinking my fiftieth smoothie of the week at the Rainforest Cafe. Bottom left is me stomping all over the memory of JFK by standing on his memorial in downtown Dallas. Bottom right is me fainting on a sofa at Southfork Ranch. Whilst the photo below features the one who made my stay in Texas so special, and who I grew to love more and more as the fortnight went on. And standing in front of that is my sister.
March 2005 - Texas Revisited.
I can't stay away from the place. Top left is me meeting Saddam Hussein at the Palace of Wax in Arlington, bottom left is me and Lisa at the Dallas World Aquarium (without a fish in sight), below is me in a stetson (not that I'm unoriginal or anything), bottom right is Big Sis and Lisa on the stairs at Southfork, and top right is me emerging from a leaf sculpture in Oklahoma City. Which isn't in Texas at all.
February 2006 - Cozumel, Mexico.
Ah, Cozumel. Or the lizard-infested dump, as I like to call it. I can't say it was my favourite holiday destination. And we were only there for one day. Think how much I'd hate it if we'd stayed. But anyhoo, these pics were taken during a four day cruise across the Gulf of Mexico on board the Splendour of the Seas. Lisa and I sailed from Galveston, Texas to the Mexican island of Cozumel, with my Big Sis and her big friend.
Top left is me and Sis relaxing in my cabin on the day of the great food-poisoning outbreak. Bottom left is me and Lisa trying to put a brave face on the lack of sanitation and ridiculously priced food at the Coconuts Bar, and right is the four of us getting sunburnt on Paradise Beach, after being chased by iguanas all afternoon. Happy days.
March 2007
At Cissbury Ring, an Iron Age hill-fort near the village of Findon, so called because it's hard to findon a map.
February 2007
In my kitchen with my arms around Lisa. Possibly to stop her going near the cooker.
December 2006
At Newhaven Fort. Not that I want to give the impression that I only go to forts.
September 2007 - TacheBack
Having spent the day at the 2007 World Beard & Moustache Championships, I felt inspired to single-handedly cure cancer by growing a moustache as part of TacheBack 2007. I successfully raised £156.21 for the Everyman Campaign, but what's more surprising is that despite looking like Saddam Hussein for a month, I still went out in public. Left is me at the Phoenix Gallery in Brighton, and right in Worthing town centre.
At a friend's wedding in Alfriston. Well, not the one on the right - that was taken in my living room in Brighton. Which is why we were late for the wedding in Alfriston.
July 2007
Friend of the stars...
With Nicky Keig-Shevlin, the Southern FM breakfast DJ, at the RSPCA Open Day in Patcham.
Thanks to Lisa for cutting her dog Alfie out of the photo.
