Personal Stuff (Work in progress - piccies to come as soon as I can get the school digicam!)

Me
I'm a Maths teacher in an 11 - 18 Independent School in the UK. This is my 11th year at this school and my 13th in teaching. Before this I did a Ph.D. in Chaos and Bifurcation Theory at Keele University, UK, under Prof. Peter Smith - Many thanks go to him and also to Pauline Weston for her support throughout this time.
Before this I was in industry working on some acoustics problems - mainly FORTRAN programming - and my first degree was a B.Sc. in Applied Maths from Swansea University.
My wife is Dulcie (pictures as requested!)

and we have been married for nearly 11 years now. She is the best thing that ever happened to me - and is herself a teacher (of Chemistry). So when we haven't spoken to one another for weeks due to the little excesses of the profession outside of 'normal' school hours - that few sane mortals believe! - there remains a congenial level of mutual understanding. This is most fortunate!

Here's a picture of us looking a little wasted! (I don't remember much about it really)

My interests include all things Mathematical, Excel and VBA, Gardening and Self-sufficiency (fuelled mainly by Dulcie's interest!), Cats, Collecting Books - mainly Maths books! I'm interested in Sci-fi, especially the 'middle' 3 Trek series, Babylon 5 and Farscape.

My favourite Sci-fi authors are:
Iain M. Banks:- Especially "Consider Phlebas", "Excession" and the short story "The State of the Art" from the collection of stories of the same name.
Larry Niven:- Especially "Protector", which is the lead up to "Ringworld" and "The Ringworld Engineers".
Poul Anderson:- Especially "The Boat of a Million Years" - this has got to be my all time favourite.

Cats
We have 7 cats: - All strays or "adopted" from rescue centres

Tom (or Pompey) - brother of Mersey (Sadly missed: Died 04/06) but black all over
Flopsey - a 12 year old tabby queen
Spot - a 6 year old ginger queen with a white spot! (Long, soft haired)
Tigger - a 6 year old ginger queen (Short haired)
Mirfield - a 5-ish year old pure white queen
Paddy - a 2-ish year old black tom with white feet
Rat (2nd love of my life but sadly shot on 15/05/2007 and died at just 18 months old) and Weed (Rat's wimpy brother) both toms


How's this for cute! - Rat and Weed as 20 week old kittens

and just Rat

...and baby Rat...

A nice one of Tiggy

and Mirfield..."Conical Cat"

Chickens
We have 8 "big" chickens and 7 "little" bantom chickens

Rat and Weed again but eyeing up the bantoms...

 

CV
If anyone's interested please email me and I'll be happy to email it back!

Long Term Goals
Hmmm? - Still working on that one!