An ill-mannered and erudite drunk (also painter and novelist) who has spent the past five years trawling the four corners of the spherical earth, mixing metaphors and collecting instances of human fallibility.

Valliard's publishing company The Tragically Flawed Press (purveyors of Bombast, Rant, Cacophany and Diatribe) has the following manifesto:

1. To publish notable if peculiar works that, given the somewhat (cough) commercial aspect of modern publication, would lie strewn ostentatiously around Poets' hovels, collecting wine and ash stains.
2. To publish selections by established and estimable writers, whose work, for whatever benighted reason, has been foolishly coursed past by the mainstream.
3. To terrify the Perfectionists and Pedants among us, who have been labouring over the same work for 10 years, into leaving some form of testament, however vague, by printing excerpts and flawed masterpieces, that they may see the actuality of their actions, and return to their work with renewed vigour, prior to their death by cirrhosis and the strain of living up to Kant's Moral Imperative.

A great friend, collaborator and conspirator, currently based in Dublin.