Seven Things

While this blog is usually confined to techno-babble and “professional” stuff, it used to have a more personal tone. This post is all about me and is part of a meme called seven things, after Jon Tan deemed me interesting enough to join in!

1. Most of my teens and my early twenties I spent obsessing about being a rock star. I spent hours every day playing my bass guitar. I found it impossible to listen to music without dreaming up a scenario where I would end up in the band I was listening to – “no way – the Smiths are reforming, but Andy Rourke has lost an arm!! There’s only one option, and that is to ask Rick Hurst to join the band“. The peak of my music “career” was being dropped from a band on the advice of famous songwriter Guy Chambers. I’ve been to his house. He made me a cup of tea.

2. I only ended up with a career in web development by accident. I actually have a degree in environmental science, and tried for years to get a job in that field, but couldn’t get my foot in the door due to lack of experience. A friend suggested I put my cv on the “internet”, so I bought a dial-up modem and a copy of HTML for dummies, and six months later I was a professional web designer (it was the dot com boom – HTMLers were thin on the ground).

3. In 1997 I spent six months living in a van traveling around spain. I camped in the Andalucian mountains, in the woods and in urban streets, and lived like a king on about £15 a week. I supported myself by busking (mostly radiohead and oasis songs) to English tourists. With time on my hands I also wrote about fifty songs of my own, which later turned out to mostly the same, and a bit rubbish.

4. Most of my childhood I had a lazy eye and regularly used to have to wear an eye patch over the non-lazy one to encourage me to use the other one. I still find it difficult to look through both at once, but at least they now both point in the same direction. As a result i’m rubbish at ball sports, catching and 3D pictures/ films don’t work. Or those magic eye pictures.

5. I only met Jon Tangerine in bristol a couple of years ago, but our paths must have crossed on a regular basis in the early 90’s when he ran an acid jazz club night called “stump juice” at the connaught hotel in wolverhampton, where I was a student. I’ve never really been into clubbing, but that was a regular for me and my housemates, and considered a legendary night amongst wolverhamptonites with a vintage clothing habit.

6. I grew up in the East Anglian fens, and it nearly all ended there when I was 17. I was a passenger in a nasty car accident which resulted in myself and four other people crawling from the wreckage of a ford granada upside down in a ditch. Miraculously we all escaped with minor cuts and bruises. Although I’m a confident driver, I’m a really nervous passenger, and can’t stand being in a car with an erratic or risk-taking driver.

7. I got married in Las Vegas in 2001. The wedding cost 175 dollars, then we hired a convertible pontiac firebird and went on a road trip around nevada and california for our honeymoon, courtesy of egg. Hopefully we’ll go back one day and renew our vows, and take our kid on a US road trip – maybe in a winnebago this time!

Ok, thats my ego indulged, so now according to the rules I have to “tag” seven people. For this to work, they need to be people who have a blog. While I know some interesting people who happily document their lives in the walled garden of facebook et al, they have decided that blogging isn’t for them, and hence rules them out in this occasion!

Keeping it in the family:

James Hurst – my cousin – talented web developer, musician, owner of River Rat Records and thoroughly nice bloke.

Some locals:

Iain Claridge – netsight/freelance designer and my barometer on what is cool and stylish

Skateboarders

Whether you are interested in skateboarding or not, most of the skaters I know are creative in some way. There is a tendency for skateboarders to document themselves and their friends – photos, videos and blogs – skateboarders are all over it. I did actually intend to only tag skaters for this, but the people I had in mind have either let their blogs die or have already been tagged.

Mark Mapstone – I internet stalked Mark before I met him when I discovered he was a blogging skateboarder like myself. He can fly through the air like a bird on or off a skateboard and is a very entertaining writer.

Gavin Strange – aka jamfactory The most creatively prolific person i’ve met. He skates (occasionally!), designs boards, and takes photos and video of people riding them. and rides one of those bikes that don’t let you freewheel.

Bob Lands – Although the boblands site is no more, he’s gone all arty, bought an old camera from a charity shop and now blogs at surf or pie. He will be embarrassed by this, but it will get him back for encouraging random strangers to hug me in public (long story).

Whip – I’ve only met him a couple of times, but he’s got a cool popemobile van

For those i’ve tagged, and can’t resist the urge to ignore me:-

1. Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.