Michael Macauley

Retired Marketing and Management Minion, Michael Macauley is rumoured to have had access to a time portal, hence his copies of the Fartledale Post and Intelligencer for September 1783, What Broomstick Magazine, and the WI (Witches Institute) Halloween minutes. Certainly he is the current custodian of Miss Minima, the smallest of the very dangerous Bells of Goldcaster – ring Miss M only under supervision. Her effect is not long lived but can be disastrous for the ringer.

Quick bio

• Star sign: Gemini
• Inspirations: C.J.Sansom , Osbert Sitwell, Flann O’Brien, Alan Coren, M.R.James, P.G. Wodehouse, Thorne Smith, Terry Pratchett, Anthony Powell, A.C.Grayling, Samuel Johnson, Tom Paine, Conan Doyle, Dornford Yeats, Marjory Allingham, Spike Milligan, Thomas Love Peacock, Evelyn Waugh, G.K Chesterton, Alan Bennett, William Cobbett, Jeffrey Bernard, Dylan Thomas, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, John Betjeman, Adrian Mitchell, and aunt Dorothy Parker et al..
• Favourite books: Essays of Michel de Montaigne , Making of the British Landscape by Francis Dyer, Pragmatism by William James, The Plain Speaker by William Hazlitt,
  Boswell’s Life of Johnson, Graham Green’s Collected Essays, Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett, A Week on the Concord by Henry Thoreau, History of England and Essays by T.B.Macauley, the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, the 1724 Lives of the most Notorious Pyrates, and The Prince by Machiavelli, and Casanova by Derek Parker.
• Favourite films: ‘Some Like it Hot’ and the original ‘Italian Job’ (‘You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!’)
• Favourite car: 1934 12hp Lanchester saloon with Daimler engine, preselector gearbox, Mulliner coachwork, proper running boards, and a wind up windscreen – very useful on cold evenings because there was no heater, and so a paraffin stove, lashed ‘safely’ to the rear seats was carried, but this gave off offensive fumes and the draught from the front window was essential for survival.
• Favourite food: Wife’s chilli, shepherd pies, outstanding roasts, and delicious sandwiches for support of battered muse.
• Favourite places: Headland Warren on Dartmoor, Cavtat in Croatia, St.Gilgen in the Austrian lakes, Gavignana in Central Tuscany, and Milton Keynes railway station at the end of any long return journey.
• Favourite things: Sunset over Dartmoor, laughter of family members, the Eighteenth Century, ‘C Jam Blues’ played by Dutch Swing College Band, ‘Royal Garden Blues’ by Bix Beiderbecke, Gadfly Suite by Shostakovich, ‘Your Song’ by Elton John, ‘Kyrie’ from Mozart’s ‘Grosse Mass in C minor’, and being purred asleep by our cat Mr.Tibbs.
• Biggest challenge: A: Abandoning Quill Pen for iPad Tablet (still learning)
  B. On behalf of my son fighting a four and a half year battle with a blinkered, incompetent, and malicious major government department and their foul parasitic private contractor (who is paid millions to profit from the pain of suffering subjects). We fought through all layers of appeal and finally won our case, with the Senior Judges issuing an outstanding condemnation of our opponents, gloriously stuffing the bastards.
• Things I've learned: Ignorance breeds Fear; Knowledge gives Strength; Experience can teach Wisdom and, (Wake up at the back!) NEVER GIVE UP…