Michael Paraskos was born in Leeds in the north of England, and his first job, after leaving the misery of a remedial high school (called a 'secondary modern school' in Britain), was as an apprentice butcher's boy. Despite his Grandfather having been a Master Butcher, this was a short lived experience that turned Michael into a life long vegetarian. After that he worked in a small street-corner candy store which was, according to him, "The best job I have ever had. It was like going back to primary school and playing shops. And best of all, unlike all this art and literature stuff I have to deal with now, people were happy with what you gave them."Michael is today better known as a writer and lecturer than a confectioner, although he still has an unnatural affection for unusual flavours of potato chip. As a writer he flirts with anarchism, although he tends not call himself a practising anarchist, even though his views on art and literature come firmly out of an anarchist approach to life. In his own words, "I have always had an unnatural love affair with the Co-op, and the idea of co-ops, but whether that is anarchism or socialism I still don't know."After gaining his university-entrance qualifications at a technical college, Michael went on to study at the School of Fine Art at the University of Leeds and, despite having been sent to a remedial high school as a child, went on to gain a doctorate at the University of Nottingham. He was Head of Art History for Fine Art at the University of Hull until 2000, and a lecturer at the Cyprus College of Art until 2014.In 2014 he returned to live full time in London where he is now Lecturer in Architectural History at City and Guilds of London Art School, and a Programme Officer at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London). He is also a part-time lecturer on the art history programmes at Morley College and at Imperial College, both in London.He is an occasional contributor of articles to newspapers and magazines, including The Spectator and Art Review, and he is even more occasionally a contributor to radio and television programmes. He has reviewed exhibitions for Front Row on BBC Radio 4, and appeared on Ραδιοφωνικό Ίδρυμα Κύπρου, BFBS, BBC Radio Wales and BBC North, discussing topics ranging from modern art in the middle east to Yorkshire nationalism. On Channel 4 television he endured what he describes as "the most embarrassing moment of my life" by taking on the role of Professor Yorkshire in an impromptu game show broadcast on The Big Breakfast. Dressed in traditional Yorkshire costume, Michael's job was to judge whether the residents of a York housing estate could tell the difference between a Yorkshire whippet and an Italian greyhound.Bizarrely for a 'kind of anarchist', he has also been an advisor on such unlikely domestic BBC television programmes as Songs of Praise (a Christian worship program) and Crimewatch (a series in which the police appeal to the public for help in solving crimes). However he doubts either of these does his street cred much good so he tends to leave them off his biography.​He was the editor of the book Re-Reading Read: New Views on Herbert Read, and author of Steve Whitehead, Regeneration and Herbert Read: Art and Idealism, amongst others. His major study of the leading contemporary British painter, Clive Head, was published in 2010 to coincide with a major exhibition of Head's work at the National Gallery in London, and subsequently he was invited to guest-curate a special intervention by the artist Clive Head amongst the Poussins at Dulwich Picture Gallery, London.