 Thorne has also written a life of the 18th century French waxworker, Madame Tussaud, for children, and writes on outsider and visionary art.From 1991 to 2007 he was Director of the Language Centre at King's College London where he is now Visiting Consultant.He founded and oversees the Slang and New Language Archive at King’s, a library and database resource recording language change and tracking linguistic controversies.