For those of you with too much time on your hands and a morbid curiosity for these things, this is my biodata. While there are no out-and-out lies here (apart from that one), some of the facts may have been glossed over, or amended to appease the Gods of Comedy and protect the innocent. WARNING: This is long, in proportion with my inflated ego.

Who am I?
So who's this Doctor TOC person then?
The Early Years
The Middle Years
The College Years
The Good Stuff
Updates
Things I Like

 Who am I?

I'm Chris Halliday, age 37, Scorpio, wannabee writer, wit, raconteur, bon vivant, free-lance nightmare, ordained minister, evil deity, lurking unpleasantness, retired love-god (yeah, right...) and Doctor of Metaphysics. I'm incredibly happily married to the wonderful Jackie, and the proud dad of Argent, Josephine, Sam and Cass, our four cats (they're my babies, I'm their daddy, what's your problem?).

 So who's this Doctor TOC person then?

You ask a lot of questions, don't you? TOC is me and I am him and we are me and we are all together, goo-goo-gajoob donchaknow. I've had a few nicknames in my time (Demon being possibly the most widely known, and no, I won't tell you why unless you buy me a drink. A large drink), and when I started finding my way around the 'net for the first time, I acquired another one. Every time I joined a mailing list, there was already someone called Chris on there. Pretty soon I was being referred to as "The Other Chris". A few people started to call me "TOC" to save them having to write "The Other Chris" all the time, and the name stuck. Recently I became "Doctor TOC", after gaining a Doctorate in Metaphysics from Modesto, California.

 The Early Years

Much to the surprise of those who know me, I was born in England (thus finally putting to rest the theory that I was actually congealed from something at the back of the fridge), in the midlands town of Leamington Spa, on October 23, 1965.

Four years later my brother Andrew arrived. For various reasons I've decided not to be able to remember much about my early childhood, thus sparing the 'net from pointless renditions of the "day I got my head caught in the bathroom window" story, the "day I walked into a neighbours house while they were away and ate their tea" story and the "day I ate a box of matches and a safety pin and had to have my stomach pumped" story. Trust me, you're better off without them.

 The Middle Years

When I was about six, we moved to the Lickey Hills, in the green belt outside Birmingham. There I attended Lickey First and Middle School, and met some of my earliest real friends (Morgan Carpenter, Chris Bridge, Tim Brierly, Kitty Levine, Donna Ward - this means you guys!). Out of everyone there, my best friend was Morgan. He used to draw incredibly complicated maps of fantasy cities and stick them on a cork board wall he had up in his room. I remember being quite jealous of his ability to draw. My family were all artists, I had the drawing talent of an epileptic squid and here was Morgan with a natural gift. Still, he was a good friend and we were pretty much inseperable for years.

What can you say about middle school? I got beaten up a lot (the knuckle draggers didn't like the fact that I could spell), read a lot, avoided homework as much as possible and generally survived. Blech. On the bright side, I discovered girls, and fell madly in love with Sarah Peach for at least an entire summer.

When I was twelve we got shunted off to high school. In our case this meant Waseley Hills High School, in nearby Rubery. I have no idea what the place is like now, but back then it was a pit (NOTE: since first posting this I've been contacted by a number of current pupils and at least one teacher, all of whom have said it's still a pit!). Vaguely simian creatures ruled the playground and corridors, and those of us with brains stayed low and kept quiet. I did the usual stuff; had fights (I'd taken up Judo by this point), fell in love (hormones - what a rush!), wrote angstful poetry and tried to figure out where I fit into the universe and why. I was fine at fighting and falling in love and pretty much had them down pat when I left the place, but I was spectacularly unsuccessful at the "place in the universe" thing. I screwed up royally during my time in the Sixth Form and decided to leave school before they threw me out. I'm not proud of that part. I caused my family a lot of pain, but if I hadn't left when I did, I wouldn't be any where near as happy as I am now.

Sixth Form wasn't all bad though. Before I left, the "League of Gentlemen" was born. Consisting of Morgan, Lawrence Truman, Neil Freckleton, Richard Aldis and myself, the league was a sort of informal "going to the pub and getting smashed" club, with a bit of role-playing on the side. I was elected "El-Presidenté" for some reason which has since been consumed by alcohol, a title which obliged me to get the drinks in to cries of "Viva El-Presidenté!", which no doubt annoyed everyone around us. We thought it was funny. I also began wearing a spoon, for one of three reasons (depending on when you asked me), which eventually spawned the motto of the League, "remember the spoon!". We were young, okay? Somewhere I managed to meet Sharon Hunt, a girl who - with my usual flair - I didn't so much fall in love with as plummet. There's nothing like a regular sex-life, even if it is snatched between periods of washing up while her mother was watching Sherlock Holmes in the next room. Young men (and I was a very young man) never really appreciate when they're on to a good thing, and so it was with Sharon. She was young, bright and full of life, loved the Boomtown Rats and the Royal Family, and consequently I turned into a boorish control-freak. Ah well. In my immature way I loved her, and asked her to marry me. To my amazement, she said yes.

Luckily, I managed to get a place on a computer studies course at Bournville College of Further Education (mainly motivated by my outrage at the fact that a girl from school who couldn't turn on a PC without help had gotten a job as a programmer), beating over five hundred applicants for the place. The course was fun, the tutors were cool and somehow I managed to pass my exams, receiving a National Certificate in Computer Studies (equivalent to A levels in Maths, Computer Science and Business Studies). Straight out of College I got a job, working for Newey and Eyre as a computer operator. Bliss! Regular paychecks, work experience and interesting hours. Needless to say it didn't last long. The company was forced to make cutbacks after a contract they had been counting on failed to materialise and I was first out the door. A short time later, Sharon decided that she would much rather be seeing someone who wasn't a complete prat. Crash and burn, baby. I wanted to die.

If you're ever tempted to make fun of the unemployed, don't. Long term unemployment is like living in a bubble. Nothing seems real to you. Without money, you're cut off from the world. You lose self-esteem, self-confidence, even your intellect starts to slip away. You start to believe that the world would be better off without you. Often people won't hire you if you don't have a job and if they do the pay is terrible, the conditions are worse and you lose so many benefits you might as well pay THEM. I drifted like this for almost a year. The only thing that kept me sane was my writing and the support of my family.

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