Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now - Softcover

'Higher education comes at exactly the right time: in the twilight of your teens, you're just starting to coagulate as a human being, to pull away from parental influence and find your own feet. What better than three years in which to explore the inner you, establish a feasible worldview, and maybe get on Blockbusters.' After an idyllic provincial 70s childhood, the 80s took Andrew Collins to London, art school and the classic student experience. Crimping his hair, casting aside his socks and sporting fingerless gloves, he became Andy Kollins purveyor of awful poetry, disciple of moany music and wannabe political activist. What follows is a universal tale of trainee hedonism, girl trouble, wasted grants and begging letters to parents. A synth-soundtracked rite of passage that's often painfully funny, it traces one teenager's metamorphosis from sheltered suburban innocent to semi-mature metropolitan male through the pretensions and confusions of trying to stand alone for the first time in your own kung fu pumps in a big bad city.

Andrew Collins is a writer and broadcaster. He started at NME and went on to edit Q and Empire. He is currently the Radio Times Film Editor. He has been a scriptwriter for Eastenders and presented Radio 4's weekly film programme Back Row for a number of years. He currently broadcasts the Teatime show daily for Radio 6. He won a Sony Gold Award for Radio 1's Collins and Maconie's Hit Parade and went on to co-host Collins and Maconie's Movie Club on ITV. He has recently co-written a sitcom with the Fast Show's Simon Day to be screened on BBC2 next year.