CURRENT MISSION

Work out what's going on and how to get it straight. In every sense.

ABOUT ME

Very excited to welcome couchsurfers to mine and my girlfriend Hannah's home in our little corner of southeast London.

Since discovering hitchhiking several years ago I've been absolutely hooked and have hitched about 15,000 miles in total! It's just a fantastic way of meeting people from all different backgrounds, especially when abroad for interacting with local people that otherwise might pass you by. The only way to travel. (unless it's too cold - see photo!)

I'm a country boy at heart but for the last eight years have lived in the three biggest cities in the UK, (Manchester, Birmingham and now London)! Upsides are friends, music, and the melting pot of cultures and ideas and jobs; downsides are definitely pollution, unfriendly commuters and overall greyness!

I did this mad teacher-training programme called TeachFirst which definitely changed my life in ways that I'm still getting to grips with. Currently a secondary school teacher, trained in maths but have got several new exciting projects lined up for September focussed on improving economics educaiton. I'm very excited about these and will ramble on about them if you let me...

Studying Business and Economics at university taught me so much, but not what you would expect! Looking back on it now, I think I've only just managed to piece the madness of it all together and deal with all the scary epiphanies about how the world works. Fortunately though it seems as though, at least in my tiny corner of the world, that these injustices are starting to become more out in the open.

Enough of that negativity though - let's change the world one step at a time through amazing projects like couchsurfing!

PHILOSOPHY

On my first ever hitchhiking trip a guy that picked up up said

"I want to eat the life, not let the life eat me"

And the phrase has stuck ever since :) Through all the crossroads and tough situations of the last few years, whenever I've worked out how to best "Eat The Life", things have always turned out well.
*UPDATE* Three friends and I now have it tatooed in various locations.

Interests

Thinking about everything. Reading about everything. Music of all kinds. Hitchhiking. Dancing. People watching. Cooking. Eating. Juggling. Sharing. I have been known to become quite exercise-addicted at points too...I love a good half marathon!

Life just interests me really. Could never imagine getting bored of all the things that its possible to experience in a lifetime.

Music, Movies, and Books

Radiohead, Bob Dylan, , The Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd, Moorcheba, Tricky, Jimi Hendrix, The Clash, Burial, Toots and the Maytals, Hinds, Jon Hopkins, The xx, The Libertines. And more recently a lot of Hip Hop: A Tribe Called Quest, Run the Jewels, Kendrick Lamar but also

Electronic and house hit me like a tonne of bricks at university.
Scuba, Daniel Avery, Max Cooper, Kerri Chandler, Carl Craig, Nicholas Jaar, Dixon and Four Tet....to name but a few!
A visit to Berlin opened my eyes to the majesty of Techno!

Short Term 12
Pride
Frances Ha
Babel
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
The Station Agent
I love a bloody good animation. Zooptopia to Annomalisa.

I fucking love reading and just haven't done enough of it lately. This quote from Catcher in the Rye sums up my thoughts though,
"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it."

The "coming of age" books that I idolised at university!
On the Road
The Book (Alan Watts)
The Book of Daniel
Doors of Perception
The Beach
Siddartha
Island

And some recent new favourites,
Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Anything by Deborah Levy
A Little Life - Hanya Yangihara
Bitch Doctrine - Laurie Pennie

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

That's so hard to say, I think the day to day trivial things can often be overlooked.
And of course it's impossible to just think of "One" - c'mon couchsurfing!

Unapolagetically a hitchhiking addict...

- Being there when my students opened their GCSE exam results. The blood sweat and tears were worth it :)

- Hitchhiking through 10 different european countries with three of my best friends. The summer of a lifetime that will take some beating!

- Getting mentioned in a UK national newspaper for my hitchhiking from the south of Spain to Munich for the G7 summit!

Teach, Learn, Share

I'm pretty handy with a yo-yo so could teach you a bit of that, been learning some basic juggling recently too :) So nothing 'useful' in the conventional sense.

Hitchhiking tips and stories also for sure.

I really like cooking and have been a proud vegan for the past year.

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Guatemala, Hungary, Netherlands Antilles, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Spain, United Kingdom