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[goo] [alabaster] [brunel]
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Welcome to the home of the Zen Cook (or, in smileys - ), or rather the new home of the Zen Cook because I've done a serious spring clean. Hopefully this will make it easier to use and will mean that my 360 site isn't full of odd h2g2 comments, and heaven knows what those reading the hub would have thought.

I've now divided my page up into sections more sensibly so hopefully people (or rather myself) will be able to find things more easily. The previous incarnation of this page had been built up incrementally since h2g2 started and was desparately in need of an overhaul, Brunel gave me an excuse.

Love it, or hate it, Brunel will be the default h2g2 skin soon as it is the only skin that meets the BBC requirements on accessibility and other such stuff. Unfortunately this means that a lot of h2g2 navigation is being shoehorned into a layout that isn't suitable for it and it makes the skin very cluttered. Still, there will be more skins and the first two (classic GOO and Alabaster) are still available for all of us who prefer a clearer view.

What I'm involved in on site

Mostly due to being online a long time, I've become involved in a lot of very surreal goings on. At one time or another I've been chased around a hospital by an orchestra, had a timeslide explode in a park and eaten many many mhCHUDs. I've also gotten involved in much pub based silliness, written some strange articles and founded some odd institutions. The following list is divided into things I've done, things I've been involved in and things I've followed from a distant point of view.

Some of these things deserve more explaination and have their own sections below. I'm also compiling a complete list of all the tags to my nickname (which whilst long now, has been longer before)

What I'm responsible for

• Doing the Web Well - An on-going series on standards-compliant web design
• h2g2 Armed Forces - A large community needs a force to protect it
• h2g2 Functional Programming Group - A place to discuss and learn about functional programming
• The h2g2 General Hospital - For loving treatment and more soap opera than an episode of Holby City
• The h2g2 Orchestra - The heralds of the h2g2 soap opera plots, the h2g2 Orchestra wander around scoring melodrama where-ever they go (thanks Joanna for the page!)
• The h2g2 Municpal Park - Come and relax in h2g2's equivalent to Hyde Park.

What I've been involved in

Things I enjoy watching

What I do when not on h2g2

I'm currently a student at the University of Durham which is set in the extraordinarily beautiful town of Durham¹ in the north-east of England. My course there is Artificial Intelligence², and my academic interests and research includes logic, grammars, knowledge representation, natural language understanding, functional programming³ and cognitive science in general. I'm also a maths addict

In my free time up at university I go out with my friends to the clubs Klute (a dire place the size of a living room), DH1 (previously known as Rixxys) and (in Newcastle), Powerhouse, Baja Beach Club⁴, Foundation and Revolution. I am also a staunch defender of the Durham institution that is Cuths Bar (one of the players of pub golf) and can often be seen spending my money on really cheap drinks there and soaking up the pleasant atmosphere.

I'm also running my own business as a graphic designer and information architect, a job that means I work out ways to organise, store, manage, connect and exchange information between systems and people in the most efficient and productive ways.

People I know on h2g2

A list of those people who have prodded me and so gotten a shiny link on my page to their userspaces. Feel free to prod me as well if I have left you out.

• Tinkerbell *tumbleweed* - one of my bestest friends, she spent most of the term she was at university with me hidden away from her college
• Sergeant Mushroom - a mad holedigger⁵ who goes to Durham too
• Uncle Heavy [sic] - kind, mad and a good friend
• MaW - someone with a similar passion for functional programming and penguins as I have
• Huffers, compulsive lurker - mad and very ticklish
• J'au-æmne Princess of Darkness - just graduated from Durham, the inventor of the h2g2 'donut'
• Elly- full of the joys of <sneeze> - and...
• Bob Gone for good read the jornal - one of the nicest and sweetest and funniest couples on h2g2. Along with Tinkerbell and...
• Peregrin - h2g2's very own President bird of prey
• Dragonfly. "A poet can survive everything but a misprint"-- Oscar Wilde - our Muse Mother