2010—
I write words for fun and profit. (Okay, so the profit part is a lie.)
2009
I write words for whoever will let me.
2007—2008
I loiter, studentishly.
2005—2007
I work at a job involving tedium.
2000—2004
I am a student.
1998—2000
I learn things (English, history, sociology) for A levels. Also the period in which my love for Ben Folds Five reaches its apex.
1996
My first unaccompanied trip abroad, to Prague. A boy vomits in my bed.
1993
I start secondary school. It lasts quite a while.
1982
I get born.

Hello to you. This is the website of Matt Elton, a journalist and all-round person from the south-west of England. I've been writing about history, TV and music since 2009. You can read a (much) longer thing about me below.

You know how, when asked to reflect upon starting out in their field, artists or comedians or film stars always chuckle wistfully and then say something along the lines of "Well, I remember the first time I saw Buster Keaton have a house fall on him," or "I'll never forget watching Talking Heads. That Alan Bennett, eh?".

Well, I'll never forget the first time I bought a magazine and thought, d'you know what, I'd love to do something like that. Don't know what the magazine was now, though. Something about computer games or something, probably.

It wasn't just the words — although words are obviously nice — it was the fact that, because the magazine came out every month, you could build some sort of bizarre media relationship with it in much the same way that some people can't go out on Tuesdays because their 'show' is on. And there were funny bits, and bits that were exactly the kind of feature you'd want from the magazine, even though you hadn't realised it yet. And yes, they often cost more than books and contained nowhere near the same amount of, y'know, useful information, but there were at least pictures.

Anyway, after graduating from university in much the normal fashion (sociology, since you ask; yes, I know) I spent, ooh, a good three years labouring under the misapprehension that what I should be doing with my life was a job in social research (ie data entry), only very badly. And then I realised that was rubbish, so gave it up to do another university course, only this time in journalism.

And after a period of upsetting unemployment and the opportunity to unenthusiastically watch every episode of Top Gear in chronological order, I've now been gainfully employed by the The Artist Formerly Known as BBC Magazines for a little more than two years. (I was weirdly reluctant to say that out loud in, um, print for ages, just in case I turned out to be hopelessly useless, a condition that may still yet happen and waits, I'm convinced, ready to pounce.)

When I'm not fearing for my own continued ability to write or dropping tea on the carpet, I enjoy the music of cringe-makingly fey indie bands and watching television shows in which grown men on the brink of thirtydom appear as maladroit teenagers only able to express their feelings through the medium of song. Also: cocktails involving rum and accidently taking photos of my own thumb. You can email me here, or have a look below for some of the other stuff I've written recently.

That was really quite long. Sorry.