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Name: Oludiran Adebayo. Olu? being a common prefix from my family's part of Nigeria, I am called Diran? by friends and family, and have been called 'Ade' too, and some others, in my time.
Growing up : I was born in Whittington Hospital, north London, and grew up in Haringay and Wood Green, north London, a most multicultural part of town. I was initially the youngest of five brothers who grew up together. The first three of us five were born in Nigeria, prior to my parents? departure for Britain in the mid sixties. I did also have a younger brother, but he died young. I have a couple of other siblings too, from other relationships that my father has had.
My mother died suddenly from asthma aged 52 (I was 20), but my father is still around.
Age: Don't you know - it's rude to ask a boy his age. Thirties.
Education: When I was 12, I won a top scholarship to a public school, Malvern College, in Worcestershire, and following that I read Law at Oxford University.
The reason behind my choice of Malvern is quite funny, and literary. My father came home with this great list of all the public (ie private) schools in the country, and my eye was taken by Malvern because I was very into the writer PG Wodehouse at the time and one of his characters, Bertie Wooster, had gone to a fictitious junior school called 'Malvern-on-Sea' or something. So when I saw the name 'Malvern', I said, 'Oh, let me try for that one!' The other reason was that Malvern had seven letters and I'm big on certain...
Adult years: Post-college, I worked as a journalist in print and television and lived for a number of years in south london, mainly Brixton, before returning north (Islington now). Brixton was great, if full-on, but north London, overall, is most my speed.
Travel: Plenty. I've been to every continent, and ain't planning on living here full-time for too much longer. It would be nice to live somewhere hotter.
Why blessed monkey? Because I was born in the Chinese year of the monkey, monkeys/ chimpanzees have always been my favourite animal, and because I once had a romance with a South African girl whose name, translated from Sotho, means 'the blessed monkey'.
Numbers: 3 and 7. I take this stuff pretty seriously - the third newspaper from a stack, the third can of ginger beer in a shop fridge - possibly worryingly.
Three things I've learnt:
1) A song and a state of grace in my head, then what can stop me?
2) Life is largely about dealing with loss. Given that, your likeliest consolation is Art. It doesn't fade, it does what it promises on its packet and is probably the only thing (including myself) that has never let me down.
3) Nothing, no one, evades the laws of Science in this world.
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