I am a qualified civil engineer but academics never attracted me as I was a sleepoholic when I was in college.
At university - when I was supposed to be studying biochemistry - I had tried to write a children's book about a boy and a wolf cub, and there was a paragraph in that which was from the wolf's point of view.
I'd been studying philosophy at the University of Chicago. I hadn't been doing well, because I was sitting in with jazz musicians at night - it's hard to read Heidegger, but it's especially hard if you're half asleep.
The young student sits with his head bent over his books, and his mind straying in youth's dreamland; where prose is prowling on the desk and poetry hiding in the heart.
'Pnin' by Vladimir Nabokov, which is a literally small book, fit right in my common law book. I would sit in class and read it.
I was a grad student at UC Berkeley when I bought my Apple II and it suddenly because a lot more interesting than school.
I was not a great student at the University of Chicago. I think that is - the record will bare me out. But I spent a lot of time reading history, sociology, psychology - reading everything except what I was supposed to read for class the next day.
Ann Radcliffe was an early influence; I devoured her books while I should have been studying for my GCSEs.
A lot of times, college can get you sidetracked. I was ready to turn my full attention to golf.
