My career in 24 random images…though I’ve just realised I’ve not mentioned working

with Sebastian Coe, Boris Johnson, bringing down the government or being shot at.

I grew up on a really rough estate, eldest child in a single-parent family of 6.

We were very poor, and I did not expect any of the stuff below to happen.

The last photo tells you why it did: I was just a very determined teenager!

I make a lot of films for local and national government. I get to interview an awful lot of very interesting people. I made films with the NHS during Covid. I've made campaign films and - well, you name it, I've probably done it if it's got pictures. I still get asked to do photography and now a lot of livestreaming.
Was over in LA earlier this year to kick off the latest round of filming for our very first podcast, Without the Beatles. A series featuring interviews with dozens of A list celebrities about the impact the Beatles had on their career.
I've presented on Radio 4 but the most fun was working with Tony Shrimplin (pictured right with Soho George) presenting the Museum of Soho on Soho Radio for 19 months.
After writing millions of words for a living, I finally got around to writing the novels I'm dreamed of since I was a child. Still well reviewed and just under 5 stars reviews all round. Here's the Amazon reviews.
Here I am as resident filmmaker at the British Academy interviewing the great Professor Noam Chomsky. For four years, it was like doing a PhD interviewing everyone from Cass Sunstein to Mary Beard, Terry Jones to Jonathan Bate.
I love the KPM library music albums of the 60s and 70s so invented a fictitious composer, Romano Chorizo, and made 3 albums of similarly styled music. And wrote a murder mystery to go along with it.
I've made 100s of corporate films too. This one was about the deconstruction of the Olympic Stadium. PPE does not suit me, but it's better than getting squashed.
Always happy to make journalistic corporate videos. I've got that whole news, broadcast and marketing background to draw upon. But it's so great when someone commmissions a creative film. This is a grab from a pop promo I made for the BBC for the band, The Favours. borrowing heavily from Polanski's Repulsion.
The music I've written and arranged for theghostorchestra is one of my proudest achievements. Here we are, 6 of the 14 of us, hard at work in rehearsals.
Sometimes, my films even win awards. This one was presented by Stephen Fry at BAFTA, but my clients pinched it for their trophy cabinet.
We do promos and things too. Here's one we did for the Olympics I think. The guy on the left is my friend and EMMY nominee, Bart Sienkiewicz, doing a great job as DOP as usual. I'm directing of course.
I've contributed to docs on Sky and Discovery too. Sometimes I'm just a camera/producer/brain for hire, as here, filming Michael Caine for Philip Savile's documentary on Harold Pinter. I interviewed Pinter as a young journalist and watched Philip's shows like Boys from the Blackstuff. And, of course, Michael Caine is one of my heroes. Quite the job, that one.
By 2012 I'd spent far too long at the BBC - you ever get that feeling you're tripping over your're own shadows? - so I just stopped taking work from them, and concentrated on the big wide world. Although I didn't want to work in pop music any longer by this point, I have directed and produced many orchestral shows by the BBC for the Web, and always a pleasure. Here's one set up of ours in BBC Maida Vale Studios.
In 2008 I was sent to India to make a documentary about Leprosy Mission International, as well as playing in an English cricket XI against Tiger Pataudi, of all people. We got thrashed but we raised money from the resulting doc. Still on YouTube if you care to look.
If the Beatles are my surrogate parents, then Monty Python are my cheeky cousins. Over the years I've interviewed them all and the last to sign this was Terry Jones, when i interviewed him for the British Academy. He retired from public life shortly afterwards.
Nancy Sinatra asked me to film her first two ever concerts in the UK. One went out on BBC4, the other was part of Morrissey's Meltdown in London. She keeps our show poster on her office wall - the one behind us - next to her poster for Roustabout, her film with Elvis. As a big fan of Nancy and Elvis, that was a bit weird for me to see my name up there too. But what a thrill. What a wonderful woman.
Working at the BBC as a producer was great. I produced docs, series and awards and concerts. I got to work with all my heroes. This is special though. David Bowie's setlist from the BBC Radio Theatre Concert, which he gave us after the show, even though I didn't work on it! He also signed a plectrum for me and gave it to my wife.
Some jobs are just too brilliant to ignore. I made the films for the big screens at Buckingham Palace for the Golden Jubilee Concerts - Brian May on the roof - that one. Lots of good stories...but not for here. During this time I produced the BBC's first ever live internet broadcast - NetAid - and covered the launch of the first digital station, 5Live Xtra. I also produced the music coverage for all 36 hours of the Millennium Night coverage.
After 3 years working on the newsdesk of The Times, I finally quit print journalism for TV fulltime. I did 3 years at ITV, did a miserable stint at Channel 4 before going to my natural home at the BBC for 13 years. For a couple of years, I produced the BBC's digital coverage of Glastonbury, with Adam & Joe and Kev Greening and Mary Anne Hobbs. What fun that was. I still haven't caught up on my sleep.
Me and Macca jamming at his studio. This was for when I was producing the ITV Chart Show - Indie Chart anyone? - but followed on from another interview I did with him for The Times. I was split between politics and news one day, and light entertainment the rest of the week. The Times newsdesk called me Hack Spice. I got into Private Eye's Street of Shame for a perceived conflict of interest. Proudest moment.
As a journalist I got to interview grieving mums, sports stars, politicians, and even pop stars like Bowie, McCartney and here, Mike Mills from REM for Mojo magazine. Freelanced on most UK papers at least once or twice - including the News of the World under Piers Morgan. That hair is making its last appearance in these photos.
I really did not want to take this picture - that's why they're mauling me. They were about to go to number one with Wannabe and I was a music snob interviewing people at the ITV Chart Show. Love it now, of course. They are still poor. I've just come back from holiday and have a tan. Mel C saw some pictures on the wall and said. "Oh my God. Have you met REM?" I said yes, neither of us knowing that within a year, she would be more famous than REM. That's showbiz.
Just starting out on the Hackney Gazette in the 90s and already jamming with my heroes as well as covering one of the most newsworthy boroughs in London. Here I am on the stage of the Hackney Empire with Larry Adler. I also played guitar for Chas n Dave one concert and got bawled out by Alf Garnett, who was playing with them.
It's the 80s. I'm a student and I want to be a journalist, so I set up my own magazine which got me into places like this - the BBC's rehearsal rooms in Acton with BlackAdder, and here's Tony Robinson reading one of my mags. I spent my 19th birthday in rehearsals for BlackAdder, tossing a rugby ball around with Hugh Laurie. Then went back to the council estate where we lived next door to a convicted armed bank robber. Escape seemed to be in order.

“I have found if you love life, it will love you back.” Arthur Rubenstein

Was over in LA earlier this year to kick off the latest round of filming for our very first podcast, Without the Beatles. A series featuring interviews with dozens of A list celebrities about the impact the Beatles had on their career.

I've presented on Radio 4 but the most fun was working with Tony Shrimplin (pictured right with Soho George) presenting the Museum of Soho on Soho Radio for 19 months.

After writing millions of words for a living, I finally got around to writing the novels I'm dreamed of since I was a child. Still well reviewed and just under 5 stars reviews all round. Here's the Amazon reviews.

Here I am as resident filmmaker at the British Academy interviewing the great Professor Noam Chomsky. For four years, it was like doing a PhD interviewing everyone from Cass Sunstein to Mary Beard, Terry Jones to Jonathan Bate.

I love the KPM library music albums of the 60s and 70s so invented a fictitious composer, Romano Chorizo, and made 3 albums of similarly styled music. And wrote a murder mystery to go along with it.

I've made 100s of corporate films too. This one was about the deconstruction of the Olympic Stadium. PPE does not suit me, but it's better than getting squashed.

The music I've written and arranged for theghostorchestra is one of my proudest achievements. Here we are, 6 of the 14 of us, hard at work in rehearsals.

Sometimes, my films even win awards. This one was presented by Stephen Fry at BAFTA, but my clients pinched it for their trophy cabinet.

We do promos and things too. Here's one we did for the Olympics I think. The guy on the left is my friend and EMMY nominee, Bart Sienkiewicz, doing a great job as DOP as usual. I'm directing of course.

In 2008 I was sent to India to make a documentary about Leprosy Mission International, as well as playing in an English cricket XI against Tiger Pataudi, of all people. We got thrashed but we raised money from the resulting doc. Still on YouTube if you care to look.

If the Beatles are my surrogate parents, then Monty Python are my cheeky cousins. Over the years I've interviewed them all and the last to sign this was Terry Jones, when i interviewed him for the British Academy. He retired from public life shortly afterwards.

“I have found if you love life, it will love you back.” Arthur Rubenstein