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GENERAL

I'm a bit of a workaholic. Being primarily an actor it means I live to work rather than work to live.

Been round the block a few times, plugging away for 27 years and in 2010 I'm gonna be another overnight success, feels like the scales have finally tipped in my favour workwise. Loads of great stuff coming out next year
...Hmmmm....

I suppose music is my first love, I expect my wife to be my last...

My other interests apart from the obvious stuff.... Film. I have a passion for good cinema and have been privileged to be involved in some great films myself.

Politics. Always been politically motivated, and have been a bit of an agitator.

Football. Brighton and Hove Albion FC "The Seagulls". I'm a season ticket holder.

Butterflies. Spotting them in the wild, and if possible, photographing them.

Walking. People. Literature. Other cultures. Playing music.

MUSIC

The following great musicians did not have pages on Myspace in 2007 so you will not find them on my friends pages:
Burt Bacharach, Randy Newman, Todd Rundgren, Supergrass, Toni Braxton, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Roberta Flack, Lata Mangeshkar, Pure Prairie League, Youssou N'Dour, Chuck Berry, Mahlathini & The Mahotella Queens, Millie Jackson, Ibrahim Ferrer, Emmylou Harris, The Undertones, Charlie Rich, Donny Hathaway (update - he has now ! finally), Hurricane Smith
I could go on for years and I probably will but I'd sooner put some joy back into this town called malice.

Following is a list of music-makers who have made my life bearable. The higher up the list they are, the more records I have by them, and still hunting:
The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Elvis Costello, David Bowie, Frederick Chopin, Ben Folds, Joni Mitchell, Todd Rundgren, Aretha Franklin, Franco & TPOK Jazz, Stax: Booker T and the MGs, Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Isaac Hayes, Eddie Floyd, Duke Ellington, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, Randy Newman, Ray Charles, Public Enemy, Burning Spear, Motown: particularly Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, The Four Tops, Marvin Gaye and The Temptations; Electric Light Orchestra, Jeff Buckley, Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry, Spirit, Steely Dan, Fats Domino, Elvis Presley, Kate Bush, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Stan Getz, The Clash, Paul Simon, Claude Debussy, Nina Simone, Michael Jackson, Radiohead, Talking Heads, Nanci Griffith, The Isleys, Bobby 'Blue' Bland, Chuck Berry, Atlantic soul: particularly Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke; Emmylou Harris, Van der Graaf Generator and Peter Hammill, Mozart, Townes Van Zandt, Supergrass, The Kinks, Miles Davis, Roberta Flack, Gentle Giant, Maurice Ravel, Culture, Mahlathini & the Mahotella Queens, NaS, Youssou N'Dour, 10cc, Hank Williams, Anita Baker, Gram Parsons, The Move, Dennis Brown, The Arcade Fire, Sway, Spizz Energi, The Jam, Ry Cooder, Charlie Rich, k.d. lang, The Who, Albert King, Tupac, Amy Winehouse, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Aaron Neville, The Sex Pistols, Tammy Wynette, Outkast, Johannes Brahms, Asha Bhosle, BB King, Arctic Monkeys, Brian Eno, Busta Rhymes, Bessie Smith, Tricky, Laurie Anderson, Barry White, Lee Dorsey, Gladys Knight, Nirvana, Smiley Lewis, Sigur Ros, Sly Stone, Prefab Sprout, Panda Bear, Joe Gibb, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Manic Street Preachers, Sam Cooke, The Judds, The Everley Brothers, Status Quo, The Stylistics, Ibrahim Ferrer, The Super-Phonics, Taj Mahal, Kool and the Gang, Squeeze, Prince, The Mighty Diamonds, Lata Mangeshkar, The Specials, Millie Jackson, Professor Longhair, George Jones, Queens of the Stone Age, Osibisa, Dusty Springfield, Gilbert O'Sullivan, Toni Braxton, Robert Johnson, John Coltrane, The O-Jays, Teddy Pendergrass, Madness, The Monkees, Billy Joel, Missy Elliott, Sean Paul, Desmond Dekker, Jellyfish, The Small Faces, Joe Tex, Labi Siffre, Gilberto Gil, Flick Everett, Butterfly McQueen, Lord Kitchener, The Mamas and the Papas, James Brown, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Commander Cody, Jelly Roll Morton, Nora Jones, Run DMC, Little Richard, Richard Wagner, Lauryn Hill, KRS-1, Sergei Prokofiev, The Feeling, The Gladiators, Patti Labelle, Little Feat, Gustav Mahler, Jackie Wilson, James Carr, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Tim Hardin, Muddy Waters, Dionne Warwick, John Legend, George Gershwin.

Time for a little negativity ?? If you read this far, god help you, you've got time,and bless you 4ever....but these are a group of people who DO NOT TOUCH MY SOUL JAH RASTAFARI.......... starting with the hugely over-rated Johnny Cash - what is this about - the guy couldn't sing, or write decent songs.
In his first song he wrote "I killed a man in Reno just to watch him die"
Yeah, Johnny, really cool you big wannabe. Every time he played the song at some prison (where he secretly got a hard-on I expect) the inmates would cheer that line.
Would someone explain to me exactly what is so cool about that, and indeed him? Fuck off Johnny Cash !!
Right Rant over.......now who's left ?

OK U2 can eff off. One good song. Two then. The end.
50 Cent is a qumqwatt.
Great beats as ever from Dre, but the raps are dry.
I don't like Tom Jones, despite being a quarter Welsh myself (!) Overcooked belting like that doesn't do it for me (although I have a soft spot for Young New Mexican Puppeteer!!)
I don't like Guns n Roses, Kiss, AC/DC, Iron Maiden or other never-grew-out-of-early-adolescence cock rock.
I don't like irony either unless it's Randy Newman, who is a genius, the end.

OK Head battering over, relax, take another sip of tea, puff some weed and b r e a t h e . . .

OK album covers = an artist that I like and that I play a lot.........and includes these:

FILMS

......films films films.....what - ones I like ? or ones I've been in ?? CV can be found at www.queen-of-outer-space.com/ralph.htm.

My favourite films ? As David Fincher said to me once (clang - whoops just dropped a name there, can someone pick it up ? thanks) - "Only study greatness" I think he was right.

Too much attention is lavished on poor quality work because it's considered kitsch or mildly amusing. Greatness is forever. So - here they are:

Andrei Rublev, Casablanca, Babette's Feast, Wild Strawberries, Psycho, The Exterminating Angel, Jules et Jim, Lawrence of Arabia, Touch of Evil, Blade Runner, Yaaba, Battle of Algiers, Love and Death, The Shining, Toy Story, The Conversation, A Scanner Darkly, The Name of the Rose, Seven Samurai, The Sound Of Music, Don't Look Now, Oliver!, Viridiana, The Seventh Seal, West Side Story, and, yes, Withnail and I.... yes!! The most well-known character I have played "Danny" the dealer from the motion picture film 'Withnail and I". But you knew that anyway. I repeat for the hard of hearing and slow of reflex.

TELEVISION

As with Films above - these are NOT shows I've been in, my cv is elsewhere...these are all TV shows I would actually sit down and watch if repeated, or stuff that really moved me:
Star Trek, Lost In Space, Boys From The Blackstuff, Do Not Adjust Your Set, Question Time, Don't Watch That Watch This, Prime Suspect 1 2 and 3, Herge's Adventures of Tin Tin, The Singing Ringing Tree, Top Cat, Life on Earth, Countdown with Richard Whiteley RIP, The Prisoner, The Likely Lads, Steptoe and Son, Fawlty Towers, Twin Peaks, Star Trek again, Mad Men.

BOOKS

Nelson Mandela - The Long Walk To Freedom, Phillip K Dick - How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later, Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin, Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut Jr, Thomas Hardy, Jonathan Lethem, Yukio Mishima, Naguib Mafouz, Peter Guralnick, Junichiro Tanizaki, TM Jenkins, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Alain Fournier, H. Rider Haggard, Primo Levi, Albert Cossery, Raymond Chandler, Pablo Neruda, Orhan Pamuk, Richard Dawkins, Joseph Campbell, William Blake

HEROES

Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, William Blake, Joseph Campbell, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Brian Wilson, Fidel Castro, Paul Foot, Tony Benn, James Lovelock, Philip K Dick, Bobby Sands, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Aung San Suu Kyi, Muhammed Ali and Frederic Chopin.