ROB GRANT was born in Salford. Despite being hopelessly and incurably tone deaf, he spent ten years at Chetham's School of Music.

After being unceremoniously ejected from Liverpool University, he started writing for BBC radio. Together with Doug Naylor, he created several radio series, including the multi-award-winning 'Son Of Cliché', and the surreal sitcom 'Wrinkles', which earned the distinction of achieving the second worst audience evaluation rating ever, just being edged out of the top spot by a Radio One quiz show that provided the wrong answers to the questions. They also contributed material to just about every living comedian in the eighties, including Bob Monkhouse, Ken Dodd, Roy Hudd, and, yes, the Grumbleweeds.

They moved onto television, supplying sketches for Three Of A Kind, and Carrott's Lib among other shows, before heading up the writing team on Spitting Image, and penning the inexcusable No. 1 hit 'The Chicken Song'.

He co-created the international cult smash Red Dwarf for BBC television in 1983, and in 1988, BBC television actually got around to making it. In 1994, the show was awarded an international Emmy.

His recent TV work includes the pre-medieval comedy series Dark Ages for ITV, starring Phil Jupitas and Alistair McGowan, and the alien invasion comedy The Strangerers for SKY, and is currently working on a new science fiction comedy series with a major animation studio.

Incompetence is his third novel. His previous two, Colony and Backwards were international bestsellers.

He has been a collector of incompetences for many years. His favourites include the rebranding of the Post Office as 'Consignia', and Coca Cola's withdrawal from the market of the most popular drink on the planet.

Read The Eternal Night Interview with Rob Grant (January 2003)