Vik Bansal

Here's everything published by this contributor on musicOMH.

THE BEGINNING: 1. A Cambridgeshire Hospital on a cold February morning in 1975. 2. A few days later, a drive up North to the land of George Formby, Tim Curry, Pete Postlethwaite, Chris Evans, Rick Astley and, er, Kerry Katona. THE EARLY YEARS: 1. First band obsession (1981) - Adam And The Ants. 2. Second band obsession (1982) - Duran Duran. 3. First record bought (1982) - Depeche Mode's Everything Counts on 7". 4. The development of what would turn out to be an unconditional but frequently frustrating love - Everton FC. THE AWKWARD TEENAGER: 1. Gets fat, gets anorexic, gets appendicitis, gets better. 2. Spends lots of time swotting for exams (what can he say - he's good at it). 3. Meets Yahweh, the best friend a person could have. 4. Decides that heavy metal, punk and hardcore speak like no other forms of music, a view that remains unchanged. 5. Packs his suitcase and ventures to London in search of fame and fortune (okay, a Chemical Engineering degree). 6. Becomes music editor of a London University newspaper and realises how much poverty there is in journalism while working during holidays at The Warrington Guardian. THE 20s: 1. Vik: "I met a girl, cute as can be." Caz: "I met a guy, crazy for me." 2. They wed in a secret ceremony in Surrey but choose not to give any magazine exclusive rights to photographs. 3. Publishes numerous academic papers - this one is in the top 100 most cited ever in its field. 4. Completes a PhD with a thesis called the "Analysis, Design & Control Optimization Of Process Systems Under Uncertainty". To date, this is the only book he's published and with titles like that, we're not surprised. 5. Decides to become a drummer and gets taught by one of Ozzy's former band mates. The cut-off T-shirts go down a storm at the church services he plays in on Sundays. 6. Overcomes the trauma of school PE lessons by doing triathlons, half-marathons and marathons. 7. Continues writing for chemical engineering magazines and music web-sites in all that 'spare' time. 8. Eventually decides that sleep is overrated and accepts the offer to become editor and then editor-at-large of musicOMH, while holding down a day job playing on the stock markets. THE 30s: Not so fast! They've barely started... But having now broken three and a half hours for the marathon, he's on course to break the world record in the year 2046.