Michael “Atters” Attree is the satirist, comedy writer, performer and comedian who has devoted his life to “Chapism”, the paranormal and conspiracy theories.

He’s resident bounder at satirical magazine The Chap and has carried out a number of paranormal investigations, including a look at lactating Nefertiti, fossilised poltergeists, government conspiracies and UFOs.

For more information, visit www.atters.com

Is there an artist you particularly admire?

Mark Gatiss [co-writer of The League Of Gentlemen TV series]. He has a knack for paranormal humour and likes The Chap magazine too, so I can safely say his taste in satire is impeccable.

Is there a TV programme you couldn’t live without?

Frankly, I have little interest in today’s gel-haired, patronising ******** who gurn from that goggle box. Being a hypocrite, that does not stop me from being one myself (when asked).

I ditched my TV set ages ago. I now watch “Ones-tube” (YouTube to plebs), an endless well of TV retro bliss. From the kids’ series Escape Into Night about angry stone circles with eyes (freaked me out in 1972) to other wondrous gritty obscurities.

Do you remember the first record you bought? What was it, and where did you buy it?

Nights In White Satin by the Moody Blues, ordered from an ancient village record shop in the late ’70s. I remember an epiphany during the lyrics “just what you want to be – you’ll be in the end…”. Such idealistic hope at 14. I bought Beat The Clock by Sparks too (I wanted to be keyboardist Ron Mael with a dodgy moustache. (The Moody Blues’ prophecy half came true… ).

Tell us about any guilty pleasures lurking in your CD or film collections – something you know is a bit naff but you can’t help yourself.

This must rate quite high on the saddo pie chart. I have every Jon Pertwee-related Dr Who. Worst still, they’re on crumpled VHS – and I still watch them. Nerd alert!

Do you have a favourite film?

Le Ballon Rouge (Albert Lamorisse, 1957).

A (now famous) Technicolor French film short about a lonely Parisian boy (the director’s son), who befriends a magic balloon. It cheerily follows him everywhere (until bullies stamp on it). Soon, hundreds of other balloons carry him off into the sunset. It’s quite demented and profoundly enchanted me when I was seven. I have not watched it in 20 years as too many indulgent tears are apt to flow. In short, I wished I’d been that boy (and still do).

And what about a favourite album?

Any early Pink Floyd psychedelic albums. Listening to their music makes me feel “normal”. A glorious cacophony of howling paisley and Amicus cinematic horror. In 1971 our inspirational art teacher played the Meddle album in class and made us paint “pretty” pictures to illustrate the music. I did a Goya-inspired satanic bloodbath.

He’d be locked up for that now.

Do you have a favourite book?

Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. I was given my copy in 1967 – the perfect age (and era). Due to its author, I now have a huge penchant for the eerie antique cartoons of James Gillray, Punch magazine and George Cruikshank (who admirably sired ten illicit children with his mistress Adelaide Attree).

St Martin’s College Of Art even accepted me on the strength of my tinted crosshatched etchings of Victorian lavatories.

What are you reading at the moment?

A bit “highbrow” I know, but a rather sterling ’70s Look-in annual. The crossword’s a cerebral nightmare!

Is there a song or individual piece of music you always come back to?

Bach (always) but the ultimate winner has to be Albinoni’s Adagio (in G Minor of course) – such devastating melancholia.

Where did The Chap Manifesto originate from? How closely do you try to stick to it every day?

It was seminal brainchild of editors Gustav Temple and Vic Darkwood ten years ago.

For me, “trying” always sounds a bit like hard work (something the manifesto is conveniently against) so, in the words of the great occult “beast” Aleister Crowley, I simply “do what thou wilt” and that works rather dandily for me.

How are the investigations into the paranormal coming along? What was the reaction like to your latest lecture?

When I was 17 I was once so in trouble with college I chose to hide in bed and regress back to when I was four (a typical student reaction, of course). However, in doing so I believe I tuned-in to and re-lived a rather banal moment at that infantile age. Equally, at that very same “time” when four (at the cusp of dawn) I became conscious of linking with my consciousness – 13 years in the future. I have endeavoured to prepare similar “time-pods” for my future. I also experimented (weekly) with out-of-body travel and commune with inter-dimensional entities.