About Me

I live in the East End of London with my Partner, Philip, in an end-of-terrace house with a small garden. Philip does most of the gardening, all I really do is cut the grass and try to remember the names of the plants. Our house is usually a controlled mess, thanks to my ability to start seven things before breakfast, and leave all of them unfinished for the rest of the day.

By profession I used to be a Freelance Computer Consultant in Human Resources, which is a fancy way of saying that I programmed Personnel, Payroll and Pension systems. Being freelance I went where the work is, which means I sometimes had to work away from home. It also meant that if I didn't work I didn't get paid: no sick leave, paid annual leave or paid bank holidays. But the advantage was that I didn't feel guilty about taking time off; and if I needed to speak my mind, I could. If a company fires a Consultant for telling them how they could do it better then they are in a bigger mess than I could sort out.

I gave that up in 2002, when the work ran out and I got a chance to start my PhD. 2003 was the best year of my life; but it ended, as all good things must. Now, I'm doing odd jobs to get me through to retirement. Actually, they aren't so odd, and mostly have the advantage of being very reasonably paid without the pain of heavy responsibility. 

My hobbies include studying language, writing, photographing insects, playing computer games, general computing and programming, annoying Philip and creating mess. Examples of most of these are on this website somewhere ....

A Short History

About Philip

I have been in a relationship with Philip for almost as long as I have known him. He is a senior civil servant and known to Ministers of The Crown by name. But he works to live, not lives to work, so this is actually a small part of his life.

His hobbies are: going to the theatre and cinema; singing in a choir (The Pink Singers); and collecting comedy tapes. He also has a passion for Mae West, but nobody's perfect.

Philip sings with the Pink Singers, and he has visited many parts of the world with the choir: Zurich, Geneva, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Dublin, Seattle, Denver, San Jose and Miami to name a few (also Manchester, which shows that life isn't all picnics and parties). He has also appeared on TV in "Gimme Gimme Gimme", and has been interviewed for TV and Radio.

Because of his early political activism, he has also appeared on the front page of newspapers. He was one of the 100 on the first Gay Pride march, over a quarter of a century ago. Not many are left, now, so he has status as a "community treasure". He also appeared on the front cover of Lisa Power's "No Bath but Plenty of Bubbles".

Any time left over from the above activities Philip devotes to nagging me to tidy up the house.

Contact Philip