Learning to win
Louis's father decided to give up teaching to become a professional writer, and the family moved to the UK to live in Wandsworth, South London. Louis and his brother attended Westminster School, one of the benefits of which Louis summed up as "being close to the video arcades on Charing Cross Road and Leicester Square."

Similar siblings
Louis went on to complete a First Class history degree at Oxford, before going on an extended break in America. Here he lived with his brother Marcel, who had just finished his own degree at Yale. Marcel has since become an acclaimed author, and the brothers consider themselves quite similar but, as Marcel says, "Louis is the clown, I play by the rules."

Blowing his chances
While in America, Louis had no career aspirations and took menial work, even working with a glass blower for two months. Despite his insistence that he would not follow a writing career, Louis went to California, where he was hired to write on offbeat subjects for a weekly newspaper. A year later, Louis went on to work for the satirical magazine Spy in New York.

The small screen
Louis's next step was into television, when he was hired as a writer and correspondent for Michael Moore's TV Nation programme. His brief was to interview quirky, oddball characters that no-one else wanted to do. Louis's
assignments included interviews with subjects such as the Ku Klux Klan, and Avon ladies in the Amazon jungle.

Weird weekends away
Louis's reports came to the attention of the BBC, who approached him about doing his own show for the UK. After six months, he came up with four ideas, one of which was for Weird Weekends. Louis wanted to "discover the genuinely odd in the most ordinary setting." The show ran for 17 episodes, and won Louis a BAFTA award for Best Presenter in 2001.