Meme

Someone left a message in these pages the other day requesting that I say seven things about myself. It’s a “meme” you know. A viral “I’ll answer some questions, and then pass it on” sort of thing. Now, the brief is a bit open-ended, but I kind of like that. So, here are seven things about me, some of which some of you will already know, and some which you might not.

1. I live in suburban London. A neighbourhood called Kingsbury. London NW9. And, naturally, my ‘hood, and lots about it, feature in these pages from time to time.

2. I work in the telecommunications industry. Mobile communications mostly. Wireless. I’ve had loads of mobile phones over the years. Click here for an article I wrote last year which features a musical photo montage of the last ten year’s worth of my mobile phones. Mobile phones are everywhere you know.

3. I love cooking. And I love to share my cooking. Over the years, hundreds of people have written to me thanking me for sharing my recipes. How I have saved their marriages, or how I’ve made their student lives more bearable etc. I have to thank my Mum. Google search index ranks some my recipes very highly as a result. I’m proud of my Mum for that. Thanks Mum!

4. I travel a lot on the buses in North West London. I love London buses. So much so that I name these pages after my local bus route. I have a lot of respect for buses and those who travel on them. Except those disrespectful people who put their dirty feet up on the seats. Sometimes I feel that it is my personal duty and mission to expose this selfish, disgusting habit. Click here to see what I mean.

5. It once took me 9 hours to get home. I used to work in Hammersmith in West London. And one January about five years ago it snowed in London. Only a few centimetres fell, but it brought the country to a standstiil. Anyway, to cut a long story short I ended up going round and round in circles on the Underground trying to find a suitable way out of town so I could get home. I wrote about my story on a website (that no longer exists) and it got spotted by a documentary researcher for Channel 4 TV here in the UK. A year or so later I was asked to take part in a film reconstruction for the documentary, and this was aired on UK national TV in 2005. One of the tube stations I ended up at time and time again after a wild goose chase trying to find any way in which I could get home was Edgware Road, and this formed the basis of my story in the TV documentary. It was screened on 6th of July 2005. The very next morning a Circle Line train at Edgware Road was blown up by a man detonating a ruck-sack full of high-explosives. Travelling the London transport system would never be the same again for quite some time.

6. I love experimenting with words, pictures, movies and sounds on these pages. I’ve produced loads of multimedia, pretend-arty stuff over the years. Here is an example: The other day I had to travel to a borough in the outer suburbs of London called “Prague”. And I had a particular tune in my head whilst doing so. All day; there and back, I could not get that music out of my head. Click on the green button below to experience a musical slideshow that summarises my daytrip to the outskirts of London:

(Musical intro from Blue Monday by New Order, 1983.)

7. And finally: I love Fish’n’chips! Every Friday I make a point of eating this traditional lunch in my office canteen. And every Friday I take a picture and upload it my Flickr photostream. It’s kind of become my way of saying “Have a great weekend” to all my Flickr friends.

That’s it. Hope you had a great weekend, and (for those in the UK) have a safe week, what with the predicted storms and so on. Cheers!