Hello...Unknown Visitor

For a long time I never knew quite what to write here, it was just a blank space that needed filling and my mind felt very similar. but I've had a big think and come up with these inane scribblings...enjoy!

The Bit About Me...

Well I was born on 25th August 1977 which makes me just gone 32. I'm half English, a quarter Welsh and a quarter Trinidadian and quite proud of that little bit of carribean flavour!

• I grew up in Erith¹ under the gaze of the dartford bridge well actually it wasn't built for a the first half of my childhood but thats just ruining a nice bit of imagery. Erith's was a dirty little town on the banks of the Thames in saff east lonnun² Or at least it was whilst I was growing up, the town has had a lot of money spent on it recently and is dramatically improved now days. Of course when I look back on my memories of the place I did enjoy growing up there, but i've been seduced by the countryside now and love the wide open space and beautiful views in Warwickshire where I live now!



• After school and so on I shot off to University in Bournemouth where I studied design. Once I graduated I moved up here to South Warwickshire where I work as a design engineer. During my free time³ I do all sorts of things...Such as playing blind side flanker or hooker for my local Rugby Union club every saturday and of course this involves much merriment especially when you put a lot of rugby players in a room with beer after a game! In my time I've done loads of Climbing (Trad and Sport), I've Kayaked and I'm even a qualified Fencing Instructor so you could say I like to keep active! I don't just play sports though I follow them as well, for example; growing up in South East London has left me with a passion for the Addicks! I also watch a many other sports from rugby to snooker but my favourite has to be motor sport.



• You see I'm a full on petrol head, I've always been a fan of cars and motorsports. I've owned some nice and unsual ones in my time such as a VW Karmann Ghia and a Mitsubishi FTO. In fact some of my earliest memories are family holidays at the Brands Hatch circuit for a race weekend or watching the Grandprix on a sunday afternoon. I've got fond memories of my dad screaming at Murray Walker to shut up when Mansell only had metres to go....I've done a bit of fast driving myself having been around the Nurburgring and the Speed Oval at Rockingham. I've also done a few 'Run What Ya Brung' drag racing passess which is always great fun.



• I like reading, especially Terry Pratchett, Tolkein, Bernard Cornwall, Clive Cussler and of course DNA. I don't just read these 'popular' authors though, I also love my classics particularly; the Iliad and the Odyssey but also more modern classics such as John Wyndhams Day of the Triffids and William Gibson's Neuromancer which leads nicely into my other big love...



• Movies, I'm a big movie fan and have watched many many hundreds. Especially science fiction type films as I'm a bit of a sci-fi fan . I'm not fussy which sci-fi I watch it can be TV or big screen but my favourites have got to be Star Wars and Firefly. I've never taken Sci-Fi into full on convention going dressing up geekdom! although perhaps I'm being a bit harsh as I could appreciate that side of it could be a good laugh sometimes.



• I also love good comedy especially farce so consequently I love stuff like Monty Python and Fawlty Towers. Although I'm also a sucker for some of the better comedies coming from the states, pieces of genius such as Frasier spring to mind here. My favourite stand ups have got to be Eddie Izzard, Billy Connelly and Bill Bailey.

hmmm tea and coffee making facilities...

I'd have loved to have heard Bill Hicks take on President Bush and the 2000 US presidential election in particular would have been hilarious. It was one of the greatest losses to world comedy when he died.


• I like all sorts of music from Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath to the big beats bands like the Prodigy and Chemical Brothers. I also love stuff like Pink Floyd and the Levellers. My favourite band though has to be Therapy?



• I'm fairly well travelled as I've worked teaching alternative technology in Tanzania and whilst there I did the safari thing then climbed Mt Kilimanjaro. I've also spent time travelling around Mexico and the Carribean which I truly loved. I'm a big fan also of scuba diving although it's really a holiday sport for me, I really should try it in the UK one day. Anyway I'm qualified up to an Advanced Open Water level and have recently completed a Scuba Speciality course all about Great White Sharks...

My Entries in the Guide.

It makes me very proud to have my humble writings included in the guide, so sit back relax and have a browse through some of the entries I've either written or helped to write. As DNA said 'help us build it'

1. How to Mix a Mojito
   - Entered the edited guide on 12th October 2005
2. The Mystery of Oak Island, Canada
   - Entered the Guide on 17th November 2005
3. The Princess Alice Disaster
   - Entered the edited guide on 25th November 2005
4. Mitsubishi FTO
   - Entered the edited guide on 14th February 2006
5. Sir Henry Morgan – The Pirate King
   - University Project entered the edited guide on 31st March 2006
6. William Kidd – The Unlucky Pirate
   - University Project entered the edited guide on 31st March 2006
7. Edward Teach - Blackbeard the Pirate
   - University Project entered the edited guide on 31st March 2006
8. Calico Jack Rackham - Pirate
   - University Project entered the edited guide on 31st March 2006
9. Bartholomew Roberts – The Great Pirate Roberts
   - University Project entered the edited guide on 31st March 2006
10. Major Stede Bonnet - Gentleman Pirate
    - University Project entered the edited guide on 31st March 2006
11. Charles Vane - Pirate
    - University Project entered the edited guide on 31st March 2006
12. Bushisms: The wisdom of George W Bush
    - Entered the edited guide on 23rd May 2006
13. Green Hell - The Nurburgring Motor Racing Circuit
    - Entered the edited guide on 1st June 2006
    
14. The Valkyrie Project - The Next Giant Leap?
    - Entered the edited guide on 8th August 2006
    
15. Drag Racing in the UK
    - Entered the guide on 27th September 2006
    
16. Tenochtitlan Island City of the Aztecs
    - Entered the Guide on 15th November 2006
    
17. 'Lawnchair' Larry Walters
    - Entered the Guide on 8th May 2007.
    
18. Chips Mayai the 2nd National Dish of Tanzania?
    - Entered the Guide on 5th July 2007.
    
19. Mount Everest
    - Entered the Guide on 26th July 2007.
    
20. Clive Cussler - The Grand Master of Adventure
    - Entered the Guide on 2nd October 2007.
    
21. The Toronto Stork Derby
    - Entered the Guide on 5th February 2008.
    

Other Guide Entries

These are the various other entries I've had a hand in. These could be updates I've written for older entries or collaborative works were I've helped other researchers write a group entry.

1. The Great British Breakfast
   - An update of an old entry which I total changed. It re-entered the guide on 13 April 2006
2. Alternative Summer Holidays
   - This is a collaborative entry, the editors wanted ideas for alternative holiday ideas and I wrote the petrolheads holiday for the entry - entered the guide on 21 April 2006
3. The Great White Shark
   A Flea Market rescue that I reworked - Entered the guide on 31st October 2006
   
4. The Sharpe Novels by Bernard Cornwell
   - This is an entry I helped contribute a few paragraphs to along with a number of other researchers. Utimately however it is Emmily's entry she did most of the hard work and it has been a long old slog to get it to this stage - entered the guide on 7 November 2006
   
5. Teotihuacan
   A Flea Market rescue that I reworked - Entered the Guide on 30th November 2006.
   
6. The Karmann Ghia
   - This is an entry I helped contribute some research having owned one of these beautiful cars a few years ago. - entered the guide on 20th February 2007
   
7. Bill Bailey
   A Writing Workshop entry that I reworked - Entered the Guide on 16th April 2007.
   

And these are my works in progress...

These entries are all, either still in progress, more or less finished or totally finished and waiting. They're either in Peer Review getting a grilling from the community or just sat waiting for a friendly Scout. Some of these may have actually been picked and are now just waiting for their big day on the front page!

1. The Major Cities of Mesoamerica
   This was a uni entry that I started but I'm now going to move them individually into Peer review as and when they get finished.
   

Still not happy?

If your still not satisfied (awkward your too hard to please) have a look at one of these...

My 42ism....Life, The Universe and Everything

U1619796

(1 * 6 + 1) * (9 - 7) * (9 - 6) =

42

The Emotional Bit...

I've just finished reading 'The Salmon of Doubt', in case you've not heard of it this was Douglas Noel Adams last work. Published posthumously it is a collection of his essays, letters and a short story that he planned to be a full novel one day. The book gave me such an insight into the man that it really did strike home what the world has lost.

Whilst happily thumbing through the great mans musing I noticed a few mentions of h2g2 and it made me think. Now I've been a member on here for a while now and reading the book has made me wonder just how much DNA would have loved to see the guide today. Continueing down this train of thought I realised that in a way he's actually still writing it, this guide is his creation and in his typically strange way of operating DNA has enabled thousands of writers to do the work for him! Writing from beyond the grave, thats sheer brilliance from a man who says he doesn't like doing the actual writing. I can't think of any better eulogy to the great man than that.

Long Live h2g2⁴

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¹ pronuced Ear-Riff for all of you who cannot speak good honest estuary english
² thats South East London for all of you who are better at the Queens English than I
³ which I'm sure your far more intertested in than my work really
⁴ On a seperate and similar note the more h2g2 develops the closer it gets to being a real Hitchhikers Guide. Which is amusing really as the more Wikipedia develops the closer it gets to being a real Encyclopedia Galatica and the comparison between the two is just as described in DNA's novel! Life is mirroring fiction!