The autobiography bit
Well, if you're reading this, you must be a bit curious about what sort of
person creates a web site like this. But then again, I take it you're not so
curious that you want the full 43-volume story, so here's a précis.
I am temporarily living in Manchester at present, while studying at
theological college. Before moving there, I lived for 15 years in Basingstoke,
though I am originally from Birmingham. Between those two, I lived for a few
years in London. Birmingham is definitely the nicest city I have been acquainted
with, though Manchester has its good points (far more than many people who have
never been to it imagine). Basingstoke is quite satisfactory, though. I've noticed that people tend
to make quite a few jokes about Basingstoke - I've never really fathomed why,
because apart from the name, which, let's face it, isn't that funny,
there's not much of an obvious reason for it. Perhaps it's jealousy? After all,
the town which was the birthplace of the quintessential cricket commentator John
Arlott, the location for that classic film Oh Mr. Porter! and even
hosted a hot-spot sprint in the Tour de France (yes, you are not
misreading this, it does say 'France') in 1994 must have
something going for it.
Until leaving it in order to begin studying - see below for more about that -
I spent 20 years working for a large life insurance company, in a variety of
positions, starting in a Branch office, and progressing to head office, where I
spent the larger part of that career in software systems development - no, not
HTML, Java and all this, before you ask; this I do for fun.
One of the most important things I can tell you about myself is that I am a
Christian. That means that I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord of all that I am
and all that I do. Jesus Christ is, I believe, the Son of God. The good news
about Jesus Christ is called "The Gospel", and in response to a
question, I recently summarised it for someone as follows: God, who
created the world and everything that is in it, gave people freedom to decide
the course of their lives, but people made unwise choices and drifted away from
him. God wanted to bring people back to him so much that he sent his own son
Jesus to us to show us the way back to him, but even then people did not
understand. In the end, Jesus gave up his own life willingly as an offering to
bring us back. His subsequent resurrection demonstrated that death is not the
end of the story, and he is alive today calling people to come to God his father
through faith in him. People today can know God and Jesus through the presence
of the Holy Spirit, who acts in their lives and the lives of other faithful
people. All of this has happened because God loves us as his children.
Think about it. This news could change your life. It changed mine. I joined a
worshipping community based at London
Street United Reformed Church in Basingstoke. Day by day we deepened our
relationship with God through Jesus in ways which are constantly surprising and
refreshing. One day, I came to believe that God was calling me to become a
full-time minister in the church, and when I started to test this theory out, it
soon became apparent that others felt the same, and so I am now a student at a
theological college undertaking the necessary training. The best news of all is
that you can meet with Jesus yourself, if you really want to. Just talk to him
about it.
I'm very interested in finding out what other Christians think, and in
consequence I contribute from time to time to the newsgroup uk.religion.christian.
The other pages at this site mirror my interests, so I shan't repeat that
information here.
| Things that cheer me up |
Things that get me down |
Things I can't understand |
| |
|
|
| Cricket, Cycling, Rugby Union, Skiing |
Football, Football, Football and more
Football, with a side order of Football, especially football on TV when the same game's
on more than one channel.
|
How people can be so interested in a game
that frequently ends 0-0 after extra time.
|
| Railway Preservation |
Railway Privatisation (well, to be more
accurate, the particular method of achieving this chosen by the
Thatcher/Major Government). |
How making rail travel more difficult is
meant to encourage it. |
| TV Sci-Fi |
TV Soap Operas |
People who believe any of the programs in
the first two columns reflect reality |
| Politicians being honest - it does happen,
occasionally |
Politicians being smug - it has happened
all too often |
Why people complain about the way
politicians behave and then vote for them again next time round. |
| BBC Radio 4, BBC World Service |
wall-to-wall pop music
endless commercials
|
Why radio programs are getting shorter, and
why the BBC keeps on fiddling with the Radio 4 schedules - it ain't
broke; stop trying to fix it! |
| Films with good storylines |
Films with gratuitous bad language and
violence |
Why the latter outnumber the former so
heavily |
| Computer software that does what it says on
the box, first time, keeps on doing it, doesn't overwrite settings you
don't want it to or spray its installation files all over the place, and
doesn't cost an arm and a leg |
The other 97.3% of computer software |
How 97.3% of software writers get away with
it.
(NB: axe to grind - as noted above, I earned my living doing this for
a long while, and know that it is possible to do it right, if you're
interested enough.) |
| Helpful salesmen |
Over-helpful salesmen |
Why people whose living depends on you
buying something often don't treat you in such a way as to make you want
to come back. |
| Correct English usage |
Clumsy politically-correct English usage |
People who invent new words to describe a
problem instead of putting effort into solving it. |
| People who drive with consideration for
other road users. |
People who drive faster than the speed
limit allows. (Especially the ones who come up behind me while I'm
driving at or below the limit and try to intimidate me to speed up.) |
Why people who must realise deep
down that cars offer no more protection than a tin can choose to behave
as if they are driving a tank. |
| Christmas |
Xmas |
Why parents would rather tell their
children lies about Father Christmas than admit they give
presents to their children because they love them. |
By the way, the table above is meant to be (slightly) humorous. It isn't a
request for information or an open invitation, for example, to politicians to explain to me why they deserve a
vote, or for soccer devotees to explain why watching 22 overpaid people kick an
air-filled bladder and each other around for 90 or more minutes (when they
aren't arguing with the match officials, or feigning a life-threatening injury
to try to get a free kick, of course) is such an uplifting experience.
Despite the preceding paragraph, some folk have taken this as an
encouragement to tell me how wrong I am about things. Words fail me!!
