Warning: this is pretty detailed, so you may well be bored out of your brain.

How many 18 year olds can claim to have figured out their ambitions practically at birth? I bet not many. But my brain kicked into gear when I was really young, and it was pretty obvious straight away that I had two passions: fiction writing and singing. And the third strand of my master plan was implemented when I turned seven -- I decided that someday, somehow, I would live in LA. I guess I just fell in love with images of the USA that I saw on American TV screened over here, but the plan has remained intact all these years and shows no signs of dying.

I was born on March 12, 1982 in Croydon. That's south London, England. I was a total smart ass at Selsdon Primary School -- the kid who always knew the answer. But I was also kind of shy, until my 6th year teacher, Mrs Doyle, forced me to read an essay on a school trip in front of about 600 people. I played on the girls' football team and I was goal keeper for the netball team; I joined the drama club, took piano lessons and sang in the choir every year. I even sang at the Fairfield Halls two year running.

I joined Riddlesdown High School at age 11 and that turned into a seven year period of torture, angst and misery since I stayed on at the sixth form there too. I went from being the genius kid to increasingly lazy, because I was so bored. When I was 16 I passed 11 GCSEs ranging from grade A* to C, at about the same time that a bunch of us managed, against all odds, to produce a yearbook. In sixth form, I pretty much surrendered to the simple fact that I hate studying and did basically as little work as possible. But, inexplicably, I still passed all four of my A-levels (history, psychology, French and General Studies). But despite that, I think my greatest achievement came in April 2000, when my buddy Camella and I sang an a capella rendition of Westlife's "Fool Again" (the #1 single in the UK that week) at Riddlesdown's Cabaret evening.