Caveman, occasionally known as Jim, used to work for a company in Fareham, Hampshire, UK, as a systems programmer and BOFH²

I live in Portsmouth, Hampshire; somewhere around the centre of this place

While not being made redundant from a sysadmin job he held for 17 years, he also works for Ladbrokes as a deputy manager³ at Cosham High Street, and recently in the frozen depths of the north stand at Fratton Park football ground

Born in 1968 in Hounslow, I attended Archdeacon Cambridge CofE Primary school. Nothing puts you off organised religion more than an experience like that. After that, I went to Whitton School, which is the building on your left if you've just gone straight over the first roundabout you meet at the London end of the M3, just past the cellphone tower (Cellphone tower? That wasn't there when I was at school, we had this nifty little entrance from the footbridge direct into the grounds). Upon leaving there in 1984, I spent two years at the local tertiary college before heading to Portsmouth Polytechnic⁴. Assuming it's still 2004, I left Portsmouth Polytechnic fourteen years ago, but never quite made it out of the city, as I still live in Hilsea.

I am now the proud owner of three IBM Model M keyboards. They all have proper 'birth certificates' dated from 1987, 1990, and 1994 (ok, that last one is technically a Lexmark, but made to the model M design). For the uninitiated, IBM Model M keyboards are the sort of keyboard that was made to last. The sort of keyboard you could use as a weapon, and then use to type up the incident report afterwards. More on IBM keyboards at Wikipedia

1. Beer (meaning Ale, not 'Eurofizz' lager)
2. Other forms of alcohol particularly Brentzen fruit schapps
3. Bowling (league secretary of the Business House League)
4. Science (mad or otherwise)⁵
5. Linux
6. Loud music of various kinds (virtually anything with a halfway decent melody, which definitely excludes Rap, Jazz, and a lot of 'Alternative' music. I also detest 'Country & Western')
7. Science fiction, particularly Babylon 5, but definitely NOT star wars⁶
8. Microsoft bashing⁷

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¹ Next time, I'll have one from the top, and five small ones please Carol
² B.O.F.H. = B*****d operator from hell; See Simon Travaglia's BOFH pages at the Register
³ What does a Deputy Manager do? Pretty much everything, as you'd hardly expect the shop manager to do something when he can delegate instead. DM's come in six flavours, numbered from DM1 to DM6. I'm a DM of the fourth kind. (Although recently, the company had all odd-numbered grades taken out and shot. No wonder we're sometimes short staffed)
⁴ which now calls itself a university for no adequately explored reason
⁵ Yes, I'm an aspiring Brainac (A recent Sky TV series featuring Richard Hammond and John Tickle, and a whole bunch of crazy scientific experiments such as Walking on Custard, things not to put in a microwave oven, and, presumably, see how many caravans you can blow up on TV)
⁶ bleagh, ptooie!
⁷ Windows must die!