For 15 years, James McCarthy has been turning blank pages into solid gold. Born in Wales, his poetic, and often verbose, linguistic acrobatics have been known to avert natural disasters, instigate stigmata in penguins and make unicorns weep mercury.

The first publication to bask in the glow of his editorial greatness was the venerable organ, The Wokingham Times. After little over a year, his pithy commentary on the day-to-day machinations of home counties England drove him to even greater heights, as he began work for an organisation delivering a cornucopia of weapons-grade copy to a number of national media outlets. Fish & chip wrapper rags, such as red-top tabloids, to pretentious broadsheets all benefited from his glorious prose.

He was often called upon to compose newsworthy arias for national television's CEEFAX service, which he did with all of the composure and style as you would expect from someone who now straddles the Arabian Gulf like a titan of publishing.