Peter Paphides (born 1969 as Panayiotakis Paphides or Panayiotis Paphides) is a British

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

and broadcaster.

Early life

Paphides was born in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

to a

Greek Cypriot Greek Cypriots (, ) are the ethnic Greek population of Cyprus, forming the island's largest ethnolinguistic community. According to the 2023 census, 719,252 respondents recorded their ethnicity as Greek, forming almost 99% of the 737,196 Cypri ...

father, Chris, and a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

mother, Victoria. He has an elder brother, Aki. His father ran the 'Great Western' fish bar in

Acocks Green Acocks Green is a suburban area and ward of southeast Birmingham, England. It is named after the Acock family, who built a large house there in 1370. It is occasionally spelled "Acock's Green". It has frequently been noted on lists of unusual p ...

, and the family lived upstairs. In 1979, the family moved to the suburb of

Olton Olton is an area/suburban village within the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands, England. In the 13th century, the Lords of the Manor moved their seat and formed a new settlement, at the junction of tw ...

, where his father ran the 'King Fisher' (now 'George's Fish Bar'). The name Panayiotakis was shortened to "Takis", before he decided he preferred to be called Peter. As a child, he had a lisp, and when he was three years old he developed

selective mutism Selective mutism (SM) is an anxiety disorder in which a person who is otherwise capable of speech becomes unable to speak when exposed to specific situations, specific places, or to specific people, one or multiple of which serve as triggers. Se ...

, wherein he would speak to no-one except his parents and brother. He read

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

at the

University of Wales, Lampeter University of Wales, Lampeter () was a university in Lampeter, Wales. Founded in 1822, and incorporated by royal charter in 1828, it was the oldest Academic degree, degree awarding institution in Wales, with limited degree awarding powers sinc ...

Career

Between 2005 and 2010 he was employed as the chief

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fas ...

of ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' and presented ''The Times weekly music

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

for Sounds Music supplement. Since then, he has worked freelance including for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', ''

Mojo Mojo may refer to: * Mojo (African-American culture), a magical charm bag used in Hoodoo Arts, entertainment and media Film and television * ''Mojo'' (2017 film), a 2017 Indian Kannada drama film written and directed by Sreesha Belakvaadi * '' ...

'' and '' Q'' magazine. He has also made various documentaries for

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

and made a pilot for

BBC 6 Music BBC Radio 6 Music is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It primarily plays a wide range of alternative music, from established and emerging artists and bands. In 2002 it was the first national music radio station t ...

show Vinyl Revival which was later commissioned for a seven-part series, and was broadcast from 4 December 2011. In 2019, Paphides launched Needle Mythology, a record label aimed at reissues of old albums that had not previously been available on vinyl. In October 2020, the label released its first album of new material, In Memory of My Feelings, an original collaboration between The Anchoress and

Bernard Butler Bernard Joseph Butler (born 1 May 1970) is an English musician, songwriter and record producer. He has been hailed by some critics as the greatest guitarist of his generation; BBC journalist Mark Savage called him "one of Britain's most origina ...

. Paphides has also written for ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publicatio ...

'' and '' Time Out''. In 2020 his memoir, ''Broken Greek'', was published by

Quercus An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

. The book was reviewed positively by

Alan Johnson Alan Arthur Johnson (born 17 May 1950) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Education and Skills from 2006 to 2007, Secretary of State for Health from 2007 to 2009, Home Secretary from 2009 to 2010, and Shadow Chancello ...

in ''New Statesman'', who wrote that he had "never read anything that tells the immigrant’s story with such clarity and tenderness". It won the 2021

RSL Christopher Bland Prize The RSL Christopher Bland Prize was inaugurated by the Royal Society of Literature to encourage the work of older writers. It is awarded annually to an author of a fiction or non-fiction book who was first published when aged 50 or over. The prize ...

Personal life

He married ''

Times Time is the continued sequence of existence and events, and a fundamental quantity of measuring systems. Time or times may also refer to: Temporal measurement * Time in physics, defined by its measurement * Time standard, civil time specificat ...

'' columnist

Caitlin Moran Catherine Elizabeth Moran ( ; born 5 April 1975) is an English journalist, broadcaster, and author at ''The Times'', where she writes two columns a week: one for the Saturday Magazine, and the satirical Friday column "Celebrity Watch". Moran w ...

on 27 December 1999; they met while both were working for ''Melody Maker''. The couple share a home in North London and have two daughters.

References

External links

Guardian biographical article
1969 births Living people Journalists from Birmingham, West Midlands Alumni of the University of Wales, Lampeter British people of Greek Cypriot descent British music journalists British podcasters Melody Maker writers The Times people {{UK-journalist-stub