Stepping out from the not inconsiderable shadow of his father the infamously right-wing Simon Baine-Jones, Bishop of Colchester, a young Martin enjoyed the kind of childhood that only those brought up in a Bishop’s palace near Colchester can dare hope for. Attendance at Winchester was not so much inevitable as written in the Druidic runes, as was Martin’s ascendance to Brasenose College, Oxford, on a choral scholarship. Under the watchful eye of avant-garde tutor Eric Baldwin – an early advocate of the literary merits of The Smiths – Martin studied English until he understood it really, really well. Heavily connected, Baine-Jones was a member of the Centurian Dining society, a society so exclusive it only had a single other member, a unipedal Albino member of the (absentee) Croatian aristocracy named Rupert De Zotty. Surviving the humiliating initiation ceremony – literally an arse-kicking contest with a one-legged man -- with only a police caution, Baine-Jones was quick to use his contacts to write for University magazine Isis. It would be the start of what can only be described as a career in journalism. Writing for both Sounds and NME Baine-Jones developed his unmistakable trademark style of words, sentences and punctuation that would see him ascend to the Arts desk of the Daily Telegraph just as pop music and football were becoming subjects educated grown-ups could be paid to write about.

Not content to subject the hit parade to a weight of academic scrutiny it was never intended to bear, Baine-Jones is famous for his hands-on role in the early career of teen idol Hannah Spearritt, who Baine Jones took from being a school girl who could easily pass for seventeen to being a nationwide pop sensation.

Martin Baine-Jones lives with feminist and online presence, Daisy Stern.

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