Jan Stecyszyn is a dashingly handsome prolific young travel photographer and a compulsive liar with a tendency to exaggerate. Brought up in a small Polish town, he grew up to become the self-proclaimed ruler of a non-existing country (and what a great ruler he is). As a true master of modesty, in his spare time he writes bogus biographical notes about himself in third person in the much appreciated writing style known as far-fetched. He's also mastered the smooth transition from writing in the third person to writing in first person which I can do at will. I presume that's one of the perks of being young, and handsome, and modest, and...

Well, I say 'young', I could be much older now. There's no way you can know it, isn't it? By the time you read this I will have been young for some time or possibly even more. I might have been long gone. Perhaps my promising life has come to a premature end in a freak accident involving shoe polish, half a bag of cat litter and a pair of rusty garden shears. Who knows? Anyway, it's 2010 now and I'm well. This is, however, if I can only stay away from any shoe polish.