IPH general profile

Family & education

I am the eldest of five children of originally middle class parents, was sent to Roman Catholic schools (including a boys-only Jesuit grammar school), but abandoned religion on leaving home for university, and ended up with a BSc degree in mathenatics.

Work

I trained at university as a schoolteacher but, after only months at it, I abandoned teaching for Information Technology in which I worked in Manchester, southern England, Paris, Stuttgart, and northern Virginia (USA), plus a year in Brussels (mainly 1991) before work dwindled to nothing (2002..2006) and I finally retired permanently (winding up my little consultancy company) at the end of 2006 to work on my abstract paintings.

Hobbies and interests

My only hobby done with other people was the amateur theatre. Other practical hobbies (that is, with an output) include DIY, gardening, model railways, electronics, playing and composing music, writing, and setting (rather than solving) crossword puzzles. Latterly, I can add creating this website, and contributing to Wikipedia and other knowledge websites. (But I do not mess with “YouTube”!) An occasional job which is a bit like a hobby is being webmaster of Opera South. My other interests (those with no particular output) are many. They include watching movies and a few other kinds of good quality TV programme, and lots of reading (of books and web pages) on all of my many interests. I read very little fiction.

Religion

After abandoning religion at age 18, I have maintained a position of scientific detachment about the big ontological and epistemological questions. My position on theism is not all that far from that of Bertrand Russell with his chocolate teapot, and my position about Creationism and Intelligent Design is not far from that of Richard Dawkins in all his books including the famous The Blind Watchmaker and his already famous 2006 book The God Delusion; but I disagree with some of the usages in the language of Dawkins, particularly on the verb “believe” when referring to the opinions and other thought processes of scientists (that is, empiricists): in my opinion, he would do much better to avoid the word unless referring to religious belief.

Marriage

After leaving home for university at the age of 18, moving out of the family home shared with six other people, I always lived alone. Early on, I briefly shared student lodgings, but always hated having to share space & facilities with anybody else. I never had a live-in partner. Clearly, I was too much of a loner for any girlfriend to think it was a good idea unilaterally to turn up and move in with me. But in my late 40s I was briefly married — rather too late in life — and my wife lived with me while it lasted (1997..99); but I have been on my own again since then also, and I now know I am best off by myself. I realize with hindsight that I have always found sharing a house with other people stressful, even though I usually didn’t recognize this fact at the time. That is why I live alone now and don’t intend to change that.

That is not to say that I wouldn't like to have a lady's company; but nowadays there are, I gather, many cases of older couples who spend time together but who live each in their own homes the rest of the time. Neither wants the hassle of the other always being there. They want to have time on their own, do things on their own, and get together when they really want each other's company. That might well not be the idea (even if it could work at all) for younger couples or families with children; but with no children it seems a good idea for those like me. We shall see.

My wife was a very brainy young woman from St Petersburg who had university degrees in two different subjects, but we were too different in more mundane ways that mattered rather more in ordinary life. She left without warning one day in May 1999 while I was at work, not long after she got from the Home Office her permanent right to live and work in England. I was not expecting it, but I think that the stress on me of living in a house together with somebody else — anybody else — probably did not help. I have come to the conclusion that I am not suited to spending a lot of time with, or ever living with, anyone else.