I think I like writing more than reading though as an English teacher this is the greatest gift you can give to your students.

I am a frustrated actor.  I was a leading light in the school's  Am-Dram scene and regularly shared the stage with John Shrapnel of 'Gladiator' and other films' fame. Becoming a teacher was a natural extension of this desire for an audience.  The frustration does not abate with age.  Finding an audience gets harder the older you get.  Publishers won't take on an old writer without an agent; agents won't take on an old writer without being published.  Someone should write a book entitled 'Catch 22'.

 

I have grown increasingly desperate for an audience.  Being rubbish at Quizzes, I even volunteer to read the questions twice a week just so I can remember having a group of people hanging on my every word.  I get to call for silence; rebuke noisy team members and sneer at the wrong answers - it's just like being back in the classroom again.

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I'm not really bothered about the fame and fortune which will come when my Blockbusting Non-seller is turned into a Hollywood film.  I lull myself to sleep by casting various actors in the three major points of the eternal triangle: Tom Cruise is fine for the US major Joad; Christopher Waitz, that 'Inglourious Basterd' would play Gaertner whose story this is.  I am still debating about the English Rose; Kate Winslett perhaps but she needs to contact me first.

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The money is not that important to me.  I am totally satisfied with my house - it has three toilets for two bottoms..  A car gets me about, though perhaps a Mercedes would help me breeze through Thai Police roadblocks without undue attention.  My clothes are designer labels, everyone fake and cheap as chips; plus most of the day a pair of boxers is most suited to the climate.  I might eat out more.