Old Toad retired in 2012 after reaching 65.

A minor hobby is collecting copies of The Wind in the Willows - a work of fiction that has had more than 30 illustrators.

Old Toad has a childish weakness for animated films, favourites include Spirited Away and Pom Poko, both from Studio Ghibli, and Pixar's Inside Out.

He likes the challenge of blending two stories together in a crossover while keeping both 'in canon'.

Scientists & Engineers versus Artists & Authors:

Scientists and Engineers know the difference between stress and strain, and the similarity of momentum and inertia. They are not always so good at distinguishing accuracy from precision.

Tip for authors: Read aloud what you have written, as though to an audience, before you publish it. Even better, get someone else to read it aloud to you.

Ups and Downs of a FanFiction Author

All Fan Fiction readers must have come across that brilliant, exciting story which just stops after a few chapters. But Fan Fiction writers have their trials too:

1. You submit your polished prose, your pride and joy, and wait for the acclaim. NOTHING: nobody 'favorites' it, it gets no reviews, and the numbers viewing it are close to zero.
2. Excitement when you get your first review! Then you read it and find it is from some pedant eagerly pointing out a spelling mistake in the fifth paragraph.
3. Someone 'favorites' your new masterpiece and when you look at their profile you find a list of 500 favorites which does not include your story.
4. Your ingenious crossover is ignored, while a shoddily written one by another author gets dozens of rave reviews.
5. You work hard to get your story just right, and only later find that you have mis-spelt the name of the central character.
6. A reviewer comments on how well written your story is, so you look at their profile and find an illiterate, un-grammatical mess.
7. You get a glowing review, then you realise it's from a member of your close family.
8. You were meticulous in keeping your story strictly 'in canon,' but a reviewer describes it as "... the weirdest what-if ever."
9. You are buoyed up when readers 'favorite' you as an author, but then it dawns on you that they rarely look at more than one of your stories.
10. You attempt a multi-chapter story and get encouraging reviews, some followers and more viewers than any of your previous stories. But several chapters in you get stuck: your plot is too elaborate and you just can't think what happens next...

The short story A Gated Community, a crossover of Stargate Atlantis and Gormenghast, has been deleted: it was a lame, early effort.