I was born in January 1965 at our former home in Twickenham, Middlesex (as my mother once said, I was 'home-made'). Since then I've lived in Isleworth, Shiplake (near Henley), Hounslow, Shepperton, Knaphill (near Woking), and now Camberley.

Despite being a bit of a swot and gaining 9 'O' Levels and 3 'A' Levels, I didn't go to University... I was offered places at Hull and Swansea to read either Biology or Zoology, but I'd had enough of being a poor student by then... and I've never really had much of a tolerance for alcohol (I rarely drink now, something the wife is glad of because I always get the driving duties). I wasn't interested in computers at that point - we did have one computer at Sunbury Sixth Form College, but it was always surrounded by hopeless gimps playing a Space Invaders game that they'd written themselves using BASIC.

I commenced my working life in Central London, and my first job involved publishing the financial results of gold mining companies (I'm not making this up). My introduction to the industry that now pays my mortgage and finances my wife's shopping expeditions was through using a computer to do sales statistics analysis for a division of Texaco. My interest gradually developed to the point where I become an IT person rather than a user. Since then I've worked for WordPerfect (as it was then), Toshiba, and Emstar (an energy management division of Shell) where I was a Netware administrator and developed applications using Lotus Symphony and Borland's Paradox Application Language (Borland offered me a job, which I turned down in favour of Lotus Development... see below).

These days I work for the IBM Software Group. Up until the end of 2003 I was the Regional Technical Sales Manager for Lotus Software (covering the UK, Netherlands and South Africa). Following a recent reorganisation I turned down the new management role I was offered and have moved back to a technical role as a consultant in the Messaging & Collaboration Solutions team. I've been with Lotus (as was, before the IBM takeover) since November 1991, starting in Customer Support, supporting 1-2-3 (for Windows and DOS... remember DOS?), Symphony and Approach. After holding the position of Team Leader, I moved to Corporate Sales as a Systems Engineer in October 1994.

In October 1997 I moved to UK Technical Sales (to specialise in Domino web application development and security), and became manager of the Lotus Technology Advocate team in January 2000. I was promoted to the position of UK Technical Sales Manager in April 2001, and then became the Regional Technical Sales Manager in June 2002.

And in my spare time...? Hey, I don't get any spare time. I don't get to see Arsenal as often as I'd like to any more, but I don't mind because now I spend time with my lovely wife Maria and my gorgeous daughter Lauren (not my mention my adorable but daft Cocker Spaniel, Molly). I like gardening (but only in the Summer) and I don't like DIY. I dabble in magic, and on a clear night you may spot some idiot in my back garden peering through the eyepiece of an astronomical telescope. When I'm in the car, I'll be listening to the Smashing Pumpkins, the Foo Fighters, XTC, the Beatles, Radiohead or Supergrass... usually so loud that I won't hear the mobile phone ring. I hardly ever listen to the radio because the stations play too much crap (as mentioned in the Hall of Shame).

Talking of music, in my late teens and early twenties I played bass guitar with a few bands, the most notable being 'Heaven Can Wait' - we played at the Rock Garden (in Covent Garden) and the Hammersmith Palais a few times, and our claim to fame was that we supported a band called Furniture who themselves had a Top 20 hit in the UK in 1986. How impressed are you now?

Television... the only things I really make an effort to watch are EastEnders (no, really), South Park, Frasier, The Fast Show, The Office, and Arsenal on Sky Sports (and any match featuring Manchester Utd in the vain hope that they'll get thrashed). I really detest drama programmes and those endless 'fly-on-the-wall' documentaries about terminally dull people. Better to turn over to MTV (or another music channel) and watch the videos.

Having failed in the music business and having left it too late in life to be a professional astronomer, my ambition is to write a book or two... I've got some great ideas but never have the time to start writing. I guess that this web site satisfies my creative urges in some small way. Alternatively I'd like to host a television chat show so that I can speak to the really interesting people of the world and be extremely rude to the likes of Noel Edmonds and Sir Alex Ferguson. So... book, t.v. show, lottery win - anything as long as I can buy a house in Bermuda and spend my days swimming with the parrot fish and lazing on Horseshoe Beach. Not too much to ask, is it?