THE WEST END LONDONER STEVE PAFFORD

Born in the West End of London, with a mixed “mongrel-like” heritage, Steve Pafford is a multi-faceted model turned actor, who has also written about the arts, entertainment, lifestyle and just about any other international issues that tickle his Greek fancy since the 1990s.

Boy George congratulated Steve on his “A-Level Bowie”, while Madonna went further and displayed his acclaimed book BowieStyle, a collaboration with another former Mojo staffer Mark Paytress (Omnibus, 2000), on her Marble Arch coffee table. Though his friend George Michael once chastised him because “He turned up at one of my concerts wearing a T-shirt that said ‘I Wanked Off George Michael’. I should’ve written on the back of it ‘You most certainly did not!'”

Steve Pafford has written about arts and entertainment types since the 1990s. Having trained from the floor up in UK music titles such as Q, MOJO and Record Collector, he's had his work featured in a wide variety of British, American and Australian media including the BBC, Channel 4, CNN, The Independent and the New York Times, as well as lifestyle publications F:S, Gay Times, GuySpy, QX and DNA, and the record-breaking exhibition David Bowie Is.

After a long absence, Pafford arrived in Thessaloniki, the second city of Greece - the Manchester to Athens’ London .

"Salonica is extremely warm and even more beautiful than I remember, chiefly because previously it was always raining cats and dogs. Situated on the north-west corner of the Aegean Sea, it’s also my grandmother’s birthplace and the city where my mother went to school, which is why she wore a silver pendant with an outline of its iconic White Tower (pictured) for many years.This is also the first time being here without family. In fact the last time I visited, Yugoslavia was in its dying days, having just hosted Eurovision in Zagreb, and which we watched with my gran’s Greek bestie." posted in social media.