Apparently having a Myspace is the done thing these days. And being part of a generation characterised by Myspace, i-pods and chlamydia, I figure one out of three ain't bad. Of course, I'm not an emo. But as I write this I currently have 0 friends - that's right, I even ditched Tom, so even the saddest, most depressed emo out there would struggle to beat that kind of lonliness. Credentials proved? Yes, I think that justifies having a Myspace.
So who am I?
I was born in Norwich in 1984 and grew up in the buzzing hub of humanity that is Suffolk, not too far from Lowestoft - that oh so charming little town famous for The Darkness, Lil Chris and being so far East that you get the feeling the rest of the country didn't really want it. As it happens my dad was Justin Hawkins's former English teacher. But this isn't HisSpace, it's Myspace.
I studied Social and Political Sciences at Jesus College, Cambridge and recently completed the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Writing's always been an important part of my life. I've just finished a novel focusing on disparate lives thrown together and ripped apart by the London bombings and by a dangerous game of one-upmanship between the external forces of Islamic extremism and white pride. It was a winning entry in the Writers' and Artists Yearbook/ A&C Black 100th Anniversary novel writing competition and I hope to send it to an agent in the near future. Meanwhile I'm working on a second novel, a magic realist tale set in Bolivia from the time of Che Guevara's shooting to the modern Gas War.
As you can probably imagine from those chosen topics, politics is another passion of mine. I've long been a socialist, strongly anti-war and environmentalist, committed to furthering the causes of peace, freedom, equality and many other fluffy things besides. I'm a member of 'The Third Estate' - a blogging collective set up a bunch of ex-Cambridge lefties with nothing better to do with their degrees than set the world to rights, or at least grumble about it a bit. We aim to offer daily progressive, irreverent and atypical commentary on culture and current events - check it out!
Every now and again I spend my time standing around on film sets as a supporting artist, playing all the roles you might expect of a long haired ethnic minority for twenty seconds on screen. Elsewhere on screen, I was a co-host on the Channel 4 children's news series 'First Edition' when both I and my hair were much shorter. I also played a chemically addled aeroplane pilot in a C4 News reconstruction scene and was a contestant on the 'Weakest Link'. Yep, Anne really is that scary in real life.
So that's me. Well it's not really me. To show you the profound depths of the real me, I'll probably post my responses to one of those inane email quizzes. In the meantime I might actually add some friends and thoroughly ruin any pretence at being emo...
Salman
-The Third Estate
-Twitter
-Showcase
