About the author

James Ward

<p>J. J. Ward was born in 1961. What follows completely sums him up, so you never need experience the trauma of meeting him.</p><p></p><p>Husband, father, schoolteacher, dog owner. Likes beer and backgammon. Fan of Spiral, The Wire, and Parks &amp; Recreation. Non-smoker. Can never remember good jokes. Sidesman in local church. Once owned a budgie. Tried for 10 years to learn the trumpet but failed. Enjoys jazz and George Formby. While eating wife&rsquo;s delicious home cooked meal, secretly covets a ten-decker burger as featured every night on Man Versus Food. Five foot eleven, good in queues. Feels guilty if he doesn&#39;t recycle. Doesn&rsquo;t get why Rainbow Ffolly aren&rsquo;t more widely known. Prefers two pillows at night. Teacher by profession. Once made 30 teenage girls scream, then attack him, by bursting an empty popcorn bag during a thunderstorm. Owns a metronome. Frequently wears odd socks. Still doesn&rsquo;t really understand why Van Gogh cut his ear off. Has a favourite shirt that no one else likes. Once saw Dizzy Gillespie play, and Ella Fitzgerald sing, while working at the venue where they both performed. Is unable to ski or skateboard. Considers the four most depressing words in the English language to be: you&rsquo;ve just been diagnosed with Bubonic plague, there&rsquo;s about to be a major earthquake, there&rsquo;s an asteroid heading directly for your village, and THE DOG&rsquo;S GOT FLEAS. Gets hair cut by local man. Shamefully uses a knife and a fork to eat Chinese food. Cannot work out where the &ldquo;grandmothers sucking eggs&rdquo; idea came from. As a child, wrote fan-letters to, and received mail back from, 1. Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon and 2. Barnes Wallis, inventor of the bouncing bomb. The quick brown fox jumped over the golden &ndash; no, wait. Once met Douglas Bader at a book signing in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. So Beethoven was DEAF?</p>