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David Porter, man of many parts - Jemma Anderson

Member of Parliament (1987-97), district councillor, party political organiser, former teacher of drama and now retired Head of Performing Arts at Kirkley High School, Lowestoft, (which is my home town, though I have worked in other places and travelled widely) in East Anglia, UK; educational assessor, reviewer and writer of a range of articles on paper and online, plays, fiction, blogs for companies.. I have always regarded myself as a man of many parts, which I find I still relish as I get older.

I am also an A level examiner in Performance Studies and write occasional reviews of arts events for both the Eastern Daily Press and the East Anglian Daily Times. My reviews and some of my blog-like opinion pieces are viewable.

I choose to write on Suite 101 in a variety of categories. In politics and political issues, I have covered such things as Parliamentary language, time in politics, fixed term parliaments, hung parliaments, opinion polls and Sunday trading. I have broadened out into infamous things said by famous people, how Britons are easily made criminals by laws, political correctness, and the unforeseen consequences of legislation. I've published in sociology, psychology and history.

I am proud to serve as Topic Editor on Suite 101 for the British/UK Affairs section and to be a Feature Writer.

I have tackled from experience, from teaching and sheer love of the arts such diverse elements as: covers of old hits, arts reusing the old, commedia dell'Arte, psychedelia, circus, technology killing off the actor, the Bible in the arts, in popular music, torture as mass entertainment, the Merseybeat sound, the truth about the 1960s, postmodernism, comedy, the musical Hair, post-apocalyptic movies, rebellion in the arts, sentimental songs, the space-time continuum, Tamla Motown, maths and arts, science and arts, pirate radio, music videos and Bob Dylan.

There are articles on list-makers, plain language, fascination of WW2, Olympic Games and Politics, madness/genius, world water wars, loneliness/isolation, old boy networks, dead celebrities' worth and celebrity worship syndrome, American-English and English-English, left-handedness, driving on the left/right, costliest mistakes, predictions, future schools, old codes and symbols, gallows humour, love-hate relationships and consumerism.

I have always written, alongside many other activities. As a student in the late 60s at the New College of Speech and Drama, London, I won the Husson Prize for Creative Writing. I have written articles and edited materials for a range of small magazines on subjects as diverse as drama teaching/education, Christianity, the fishing industry and fiction; and created an English course for a correspondence college.

I have written plays and directed shows for and with young people, including the musicals Bugsy Malone, Grease and Hairspray. A number of my articles on Suite 101 are about drama and performing arts teaching, particularly at secondary level, where I am setting down ideas and experiences I have created and worked through with young people.

I contribute articles to MusicRadar.com on the music industry, such as The Songs That Should Have Been on the Boat That Rocked and 11 Recording Studios to Rival Abbey Road, A-Z of Bob Dylan, The 13 Essential Bob Dylan Albums and A-Z of Folk Music.

I am married with four grown up children and two grandchildren, so far.