Born in Reading, England, John Finnemore is an English comedian, actor, and crossword writer. His parents were David and Patricia and has a younger sister, Anna. At 19, he spent half a year teaching English in Krakow, Poland. He then studied at the Cambridge University, where he was a member of the Cambridge Footlights student sketch group before graduating in 2000. He gained recognition as the author of Cabin Pressure, a comedy radio show that aired between 2008 and 2014 and starred Finnemore himself, as well as Stephanie Cole, Roger Allam, and Benedict Cumberbatch. He wrote for a number of sketch comedy shows, including Peep Show (2003) and That Mitchell and Webb Look (2006), and appeared in minor roles in movies and on TV. Since 2016 he's been writing crosswords under the pseudonym Emu. In 2023, he co-wrote the second season of Good Omens (2019) with Neil Gaiman.