A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG BASSPLAYER
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NOTES FOR MY BIOGRAPHER...
[sigma] I was born on Christmas Day.
[sigma] I am an only child.
[sigma] At the age of 13 I researched the names of all 150 Knights of the Round Table,
[sigma] In 1969 I discussed with David Bowie the possibility of forming a band featuring poetry & drama alongside music. It never came to pass.
[sigma] I am virtually innumerate & can manage only basic addition, subtraction & multiplication.
[sigma] My favourite whisky is Lagavulin, a 16-year matured single malt from the Scottish island of Islay.
[sigma] I have never been arrested but, as part of a London Anarchist Group flying column demonstrating against the Vietnam War I was once pursued by police on foot & horseback down the middle of Whitehall. I was seized by a very small policewoman in Duke of Wellington Place but managed to struggle free.
[sigma] The only sport I play is petanque (sometimes known ñ erroneously - as boules), the French terrace game involving steel balls & a small wooden puck. When I concentrate Iím pretty good,
[sigma] Amongst my favourite poets are R.S. Thomas, John Burnside, Diane di Prima, Peter Redgrove, Philip Larkin, Amy Clampitt & D.K. Williams.
[sigma] I am a radio ham. My callsign is G0EUV.
[sigma] I support ñ against all reason ñ Watford Football Club.
[sigma] I once auditioned Elvis Costello as a keyboard player for my band & turned him down in favour of someone called Sparky Harris (who now manages a travel agency in Croxley Green).
[sigma] The funniest book I have ever read is Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis,
[sigma] My band once played to a capacity audience in the Albert Hall.
[sigma] In the mid-ë80s I compiled an Anglo-Romani dictionary drawing on sources found from amongst my 200+ books on Romani life & culture.
[sigma] My first love (unrequited because unknowing) was a girl called Lindy Rutter. (Subsequently she married Nick Mason of Pink Floyd).
[sigma] Amongst my principle failings are impatience, intolerance of what I judge to be folly, argumentativeness & stubbornness beyond reasonable limits.
[sigma] The first record I ever bought was Your Ma Said You Cried In Your Sleep Last Night by Doug Sheldon.
[sigma] I am an atheist, but I donít deny the existence of a spiritual dimension within the human constitution.
[sigma] I once took a piss standing next to Stanley Kubrick in a public urinal. He asked me the time.
[sigma] My favourite flower is lily of the valley. Their fragrance reminds me of my childhood home in Kingston-upon-Thames,
[sigma] I am implacably opposed to capital punishment.
[sigma] Had I been born a girl my name would have been Charlotte Mary Ann.
[sigma] I believe that the pursuit of happiness involves us in wasted travelling time.
[sigma] I believe that nothing in life has greater primacy than the giving & receiving of love.
4:46:01 PM 
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