What made you want to work in the magazine industry?

Being a teenage, semi-depressed, music fan from the outer limits of East Yorkshire, who found the glamorous and exciting new world in the pages of magazines like NME, Sky Magazine and Empire. They seemed impossibly exciting and fascinating, and completely away from my world at the time. I desperately thought, "That's what I'd like to do" from quite a young age, maybe 12 or 13, but I had no idea that I could actually do it. It seemed absolutely impossible, but I've done it!

What have been your career highlights so far?

I would say becoming deputy-editor of NME was massive for me, as it was the foremost dream of those teenage years, especially interviewing Iggy Pop and David Lynch for NME, my two big heroes. Also, becoming editor of Shortlist, I spent five years there, veering from being a mediocre Editor to a crap Editor to an okay Editor, then a pretty good editor; all the various stages. But it was a very important step for me in terms of my career and a huge learning point for me.

My crowning glory would have to be the launch of The Book of Man, which is not just a magazine job but my own business. I founded it, it was my idea, I brought it to fruition and it's here now in the world, winning PPA awards! Everything has come together, all my learnings and excitement and passion for it has come together in this business. It's like my heart is out there, you know? And it's Googleable.

Do you have a go-to work outfit?

I used to at various stages. I used to get some mild, "You should wear a suit and be powerful," instructions, so I wilfully go the other way. I mean I basically dress in rags, I'm just a disaster. I've got holes in my T-shirt at the moment. If I have a big meeting then I might throw on a suit jacket, but generally I’m pretty much dressed like The Dude on the day before laundry day.

How do you handle deadlines?

I like giving them out….

I'm not too bad. Of course, I’ll leave it until the last minute, but I'm not writing up to the last minute and having loads of extensions kind of thing. I'm pretty well disciplined when it comes to writing, which isn't to say that I get it right immediately or anything like that. It does take a lot of work and a lot of revision but one of my saving graces, I would say, is diligence, which is a much underrated, not very glamorous quality, but thankfully it's one that I possess.

What’s the most unusual situation you’ve found yourself in because of your job?

Well, I was made up in drag a couple of weeks go for The Book of Man which was unusual.

I found it… quite a curious experience. You know, I'm from the, I started by career at Maxim magazine when it was something in the early 2000s, when it was all about stunt journalism, sub-Hunter S. Thompson style journalism, so I'd done a few stunts and things like that. I had to dress as a goth for a story, which was one of the big breakthrough things I did and I've dressed up as a goth and gone to Florida and met astronauts and the governor of Florida, all done up, looking like Marilyn Manson in full make up, with hair extensions. That was incredibly unusual. I asked the astronaut, "When you left Earth in the shuttle and you looked back at the Earth did you think how small and pointless humans are?" And he said, "Yes, I did." And it turns out it's quite a common thing around astronauts, they get quite depressed and stuff afterwards, seeing how insignificant we are in the universe.

I found it a lot more embarrassing than I thought I would. I was quite out of my comfort zone as a man. Having make up put on and being made to look very beautiful is not something you ever experience as a man. I found it quite difficult but really interesting.

Part of what we're doing at [The Book of Man] at the moment is looking at new ways of being a man and trying to understand ourselves. Asking, why is it so embarrassing for us to put make up and to get dressed up and look like that? What's the deal there? For me, I think I just have a bit of a fear of exposure and performance, so the idea of having to perform as a drag queen made me very, very scared. But the brilliant drag queens who were doing me up said, "It's bad drag if you're trying to perform it too much. Just be yourself." Which was great, so in the end I did enjoy looking great however, wearing the high heels was a nightmare.

What would people be surprised to know about your job?

Maybe from the outside, you wouldn't quite realise how much I have to do on the business front, because it's a highly different skill for me, in that I'm having to run the business side of things and look after the financial aspects and the VAT and things like this.

While I'm lucky enough to Glastonbury and put on some panel shows and have our fun there, there is also a lot of trying to figure out how finance works and that is not a natural thing for me.

Walk me through your typical day.

Typical day: Wake up 7:00am with the kids and get them sorted out. I'd like to say that I don't check social media until I'm at work but that would be a total lie.

I probably start having a little look around at what's going on about half seven, just checking the news. I get the kids off to school around 9:00am, then arrive at the office around half nine in Peckham, in the Bussey Building.

Then it'll be a combination of writing stories, chasing up columnists like Professor Green, begging him to get his column in, and he'll say yes, and then it won't arrive. I’ll be chasing up copy, editing, getting our social media people in order, making sure that they've got enough to post that day. I’ll have about three or four phone calls a day with my colleague Mark Sanford who's the other Book of Man man and be working on partnerships that we have coming up and thinking about what new initiatives we can do and projects and campaigns that might make people really excited.

While all this is going on, I'm always at my desk with my headphones on listening to 90s grunge music. I eat at my desk as well, so I don't basically move for about eight hours. And then I'll catch up with my events manager, we'll talk about what we've coming up in terms of venues and how ticket sales are doing and bookings for our tour around the country, which is going on at the moment. Events are a huge part of what we do.

My office is close to my house, a benefit of setting up your own business is you can get rid of the commute. I’ll have a couple of hours with the kids and then get them back off to bed.

My evening shift starts at about 8:00pm and I'll work until 11:00pm, at least, dependent on how worried I am, mopping up emails and another writing shift. I’ll also put together our daily newsletter and hopefully at the end of the day, if all things have gone nicely, I’ll get some reading time in as well. Essentially, I'm working around the clock like a maniac at the moment, I thought it'd be just for the moment, but it's been nearly a year and a half.

How has being a member of the PPA helped you/added value to your brand?

In my long career, I've been to a few awards ceremonies, got the occasional little nomination but I haven't really come close to winning. So, to actually win, Innovation of the Year for my own new platform was astonishing and it's had an immediate effect, actually.

It’s fun if people start approaching you and showing a bit of interest, we're quite lucky in that what we do has had attention. We do a lot of panels and media work anyway, just because of the new way we're looking at men. But in terms of actually having those three letters and then “award-winning” is something that we can take into our meetings now. It's that extra validation and authority that makes people listen to you a bit more. It's only been a couple of weeks, but I fully expect it to be a really transformative thing for us and is something that we are very proud of.

*If you didn’t have to sleep, how would you use the remaining hours in the day? *

Without sounding like a total nerd, I would read, because this is imagining that my children are still asleep!

I've got stacks and stacks and stacks of books that I need to get through and I would totally do that. Or at least that's probably what I'd say… The idea would be that I would read, perhaps, all of Tolstoy and the other stack of books that I've got on my desk and really study hard and absorb as much as I possibly could because I love doing that.

In reality I'd probably watch the Alien quadrilogy, or whatever it is now, and eat cheesecakes.

What is the last photo you took on your phone (at time of interview)? Why?

It was a picture of The Book of Man team in the Glastonbury shed area, we took over an area within Shangri La called The Shed, which was a space of positive masculinity. I took a picture of us in there because it was a wonderful experience, even though it was extremely hot.

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Love Island.

Whose phone number do you wish you had?

Iggy Pop.

What’s the best/worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

The worst piece of advice I've had is, "Man up." Manning up has been the worst thing that I've tried to do in my past. Destroying myself as a man has been a liberation.

The best piece of advice I've had is, "Just do it again." Which I had early on my career writing. I like it because there's a real problem when you're a writer, that you think everything that you put on the page is genius. Especially when you've come from the music writing point of view, where everyone is convinced that they're a genius. Actually, writing it again and again and again is the best and the surest way to make sure that it is actually even passable. It's never that good when you first write it and I found 1000% of the time that the more times that you do it, the better it gets.

What/where is your happy place?

Just at home with my kids on the sofa, having a bit of a cuddle and eating some doughnuts.

What would people be surprised to know about you?

I think because of what I do at The Book of Man, people are now expecting me to be a very emotional and vulnerable new man in touch with all of his emotions; a meditating and clean-living kind of guru, which is totally untrue. I'm really the guy who really needs the _The Book of Man_ more than anyone else.

What would be in your Room 101?

Brexit. Just throw that in there, and anyone associated with it. Put beanie hats in as well.

Introvert or extrovert?

I'm introverted to a point of pathology, it's one of my most challenging aspects. It's been very good to do The Book of Man because I'm having to do a lot of panels and a lot of talking and it's really helping that side of things.

Optimist or pessimist?

I'd say I'm a natural pessimist. I'm Northern and just that way inclined, but I think I’ve surprised myself sometimes. I've launched a new business into a terrifying media world with all sorts of potential disasters and shrapnel flying around. I must be an optimist if I've done that, and I’m optimistic for men today as well. The key thread of The Book of Man is trying to do something positive and new.

Film or television? What are you binge-watching at the moment?

I prefer films. I'm totally locked into the TV golden era, but I'm beginning to resent the amount of time it's taking away. I recently saw Arctic with Mads Mikkelsen, which was great.

*Sweet or savoury? *

Sweet.

*Morning person or night owl? *

I'm a night owl. I like to work late, I like being up late when everyone else is in bed, I like watching late movies, I like reading late, I like writing late. That's what I've always liked to do.

Tea or coffee?

Tea. 1000%.

Emojis – cool or cringey? Which emoji do you use the most?

I would say cringy, I still can't do them I'm afraid. This is one of the reasons why I'm not yet that really truly “new” man. I just feel like I'll get it wrong and end up sending the inappropriate ones like the dick emoji by mistake.