I was born, Benjamin James Ross (Binyamin Avraham Yakov Ben Noah, in Hebrew), on the 14th January, 1981 in UCH hospital, London.

Between the ages of 5 and 11 I went to Fleet Primary school. I have very fond memories of the school, and the people there, though the overriding memory is of reversing and then adding numbers ad infinitum with my friends Max and Adam, trying to make a palindrome from the one three digit number that never makes a palindrome, no matter how many times you reverse the digits and add them together.

From 11 to 13 I attended Trevor-Roberts' Tutorial College - a tiny (but very good) school in someone's house, where I began learning French and Latin, and other subjects more formally than I had before, in order to prepare myself for common entrance exams to get into a private secondary school. In the end, rather than taking common entrance, we decided that I should try the St Paul's School scholarship exams (since the worst they can do is make you take C.E. after all), and gained a place at the school based on those.

From 13 to 18 I went to St Paul's School in Hammersmith. St Paul's has a stereotyped reputation as snotty and traditionalist, presumably based on it being a relatively expensive private school. In fact, St Paul's is about as modern as you can get in a private school, and (whilst it tended to be its downfall on occasion) it inbued every boy with a strong sense of individualism and independence. During my time at St Paul's I was lucky enough to direct three short plays at two different dramatic festivals held at the school, and these are probably the times I remember most fondly.

Since October 1999 I have been reading Philosophy at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. This is (as, of course, we have come to expect from tales of student life) the most amazing, exciting and expanding time, and I feel incredibly lucky, as my friend Skye puts it, to be able to spend three years indulging in a totally academic study. It is, indeed, great fun, very interesting and, whilst often very stressful, worth every minute!