My name is James and I'm a writer. I recently signed a book deal with Faber and Faber. I spent most my advance on alcohol and travelling Europe. Before that, I lived in Paris for 5 years, but now live in London. I prefer boulevards to streets and the Metro to the Underground, but here I am, breathing in the smog, slowly suffocating.

I'm probably a sociopath, or maybe I'm autistic...I dunno.

I like to walk around art galleries and gasp at the pictures as if I've seen something profoundly life-changing, then see others stare at the same image waiting for it to happen to them.

I spend a lot of time reading on trains. Specifically, of late, Pessoa, Canetti, Emmanuel Bove and Proust.

When I'm bored, which isn't very often, I act out Samuel Beckett's plays using my cats as secondary characters. And at the moment, I am attempting to stage an all feline version of Fitzgerald's classic (The Great Catsby).

I can recite most of Sylvia Plath's poetry from memory and I can tell you the birth and death dates of most famous poets/philosophers/novelists and artists, which is of course, utterly effing pointless.

I also like to cover people in paint, then throw canvases at them whilst yelling 'ART!'

My life consists of the pointless and the inane. A kind of 'Life for life's sake' philosophy encompasses most, if not all, of my actions...for now at least.

Oh, and I excel greatly at drawing penises, losing phones and leaving wet towels on the floor.

God, I sound like a pretentious hipster!... And now I'm worried I am one!

I am here to make friends with people, as most of us probably are. I have several typewriters and I want to use them to write letters that one day someone will collect and publish (preferably when I'm dead.)

But seriously, I would love a penpal, and maybe one day travel to meet said penpal for drinks, speaks and walks around famous cemeteries.

I read a lot. I write a lot. I enjoy looking up as I have a healthy obsession with the cosmos and things of that nature. Recently I spend a lot of time thinking about my inevitable death and the death of the universe, at which point, all art will cease to exist; all genius will be erased from existence, and nothing will ever have mattered. Ever. This kind of morbid thinking started when I hit 30. It's probably caused by an early mid-life crisis or something.

Also I am trying to invent a time machine by tying a piece of rope around my waist, placing the other end in a VCR player and pressing rewind so I can be dragged into the past where everything is smiles and dancing. I have not quite perfected it and need a bit of help getting it right. That's where you come in!

Regina Spektor, Jeff Buckley, M83...waaaay too many to list. Just ask.

Synecdoche, New York, Anomalisa, The Social Network, The Revenant, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The Hurt Locker, Chappie, District 9, Elysium, The Pianist...the list goes on and on.

Peep Show, FOTC, Nathan for You, Peaky Blinders, The American Office...and many more.

Book-wise, I like the EVs and the OVs of Russia quite a bit.
I like the French people and the German people too.
There are a few Czechs I like, as well as a Norwegian.
I like a couple of Americans, a scattering of Brits, a Spaniard
and a Portugeezer!....And many more besides.

"I am inhabited by a cry. Nightly it flaps out. Looking, with its hooks, for something to love".

I have an endless store of quotes in my head. I chose one at random.