Fantin Le Flâneur was born in the East End of London in 1940. His father was a painter, the son of an Italian immigrant from Tuscany, who made ice cream. His gifted mother was a close relative of Samuel Gompers, the cigar worker who created the American trade union movement.

Le Flâneur studied at Camberwell College of Art in the 1950s. He began playing jazz and writing seriously at the same time. He currently plays fourteen instruments, occasionally simultaneously. He also shuttles easily - and regularly - from the betting shop to the restaurant.

Fantin Le Flâneur's first published novel was entitled Mike Dime. It was followed by Stick Man. During the 1980s he published five books on Chinese Horoscopes. Apart from feeling he could have spent that decade more fruitfully, Le Flaneur writes plays and poetry, as well as contributing to Private Eye, which he has done since 1963. Silvie Krin, E.J.Thribb and Barry Fantoni are three of his many noms de plumes, the third on that list being perhaps the least well known of all.