Nano was like my brother. We were friends since we were five and I idolised him when we were small. He was always smiling, always knew how to turn a phrase to make everyone laugh, and his own laugh was infectious. Good-looking, sharp and confident, he was massively popular.

While I drifted away from all my old friends after school, I always kept close contact with Nano, although our worlds were massively different. He always maintained his great wit, but without focus and direction Nano was troubled in his later years and made impossible demands on all his relationships. Life began to pass him by and he often couldn't bear to watch.

Yet he was always passionate and enthusiastic about the people and things he loved and you could always prise out the underlying humour and positivity in him. He always had a plan - often vague or far-fetched - but always conveyed with energy and conviction. 

He was most industrious when he was creative. I remember him writing stories about Samurais when we were kids and in his teenage days writing songs on his guitar. His greatest talent was as an anecdotalist, the way he could express his perspective and observations about life and people could entertain and provoke hilarity in his listeners. 

He could always reveal the extraordinary irony and the preposterous in the most mundane of experiences. He would have made an exceptional comic, and like so many personalities with that particular talent, he rode the highs and lows of depression to their opposite extremes.