CURRENT MISSION

Be good at my job without turning into a total old man overnight.

ABOUT ME

I grew up in a small town in North Shropshire about five minutes from the Welsh border. Spent most of my childhood either walking in the countyside or reading.
Still love the countryside and reading a good book.

I try my best to be a decent guy and have fun. Enthusiastic about travel and new experiences. I try to be open minded and tend to get along with most people.

I'm generally quite laid back and I'm learning not to worry about things. Love learning new things and making new friends. I'm pretty easy to talk to and I like to think I've got a pretty good sense of humour.

PHILOSOPHY

My father is a stoic, my Mother was an existentialist epicuran. I'm Still working on it. It probably involves the phrase "When you're 90 are you really going to remember that great sofa you brought when you were young?" at some point.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

One of my best friends used Couchsurfing on his world tour and introduced me. When I went travelling I met some amazing travellers and hosts and now that I've moved to a new city I would love to get involved in the sort of couchsurfing communities I saw on my travels.

Interests

I like walking around looking at all the interesting things there are to see. I know that sounds quite basic but it's true! I can quite happily spend a whole day walking about a city or the country.

I like nice food and drink. I'm very keen on Real Ale and I like to think I'm a pretty decent cook. I like talking to people. Like most people I love reading, music and the cinema. I enjoy swimming and messing about on the water. I've recently got interested in mushroom picking and I've collected masks since I was about nine years old.

Lets see. I also like comics, poetry, going to art galleries and cult tv shows like Doctor Who and the Avengers. Quite nerdy I know but fun.

I guess my interests are fairly broad and I like to think that I'm pretty open to trying new things.

• fish
• arts
• books
• poetry
• dining
• cooking
• walking
• drinking
• comics
• movies
• reading
• tv
• traveling
• music
• fishing
• camping
• swimming
• medicine

Music, Movies, and Books

I like to think I have a fairly broad taste when it comes to music, books and films. If I give you a list of some of my favourites you'll get some idea of the stuff I already like but I'm always open to giving new stuff a try so it's not exhaustive by any means!

Specific bands and people I think are cool: Animal Collective, Arcade Fire, Bob Dylan, Broken Social Scene, Bruce Springsteen, The Clash, Dangerdoom, David Bowie, The Decemberists, Elvis Presley, Faithless, Goldie Lookin' Chain, Iggy and the Stooges, Iron & Wine, Iron Maiden, The Jam, Johnny Cash, Pink Floyd, The Propellerheads, Rancid, The Rolling Stones, Spoon, Stars, The Stranglers, Sufjan Stevens, Vampire Weekend and Velvet Underground. My old flatmate gave me ten gig of his music to go traveling with so I'm really getting into Paradise Lost and Dream Theater as well.

I love reading, my favourites at the moment are history books but I also like pretty much anything by Phillip K. Dick, George Orwell, George Macdonald Frasier, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Grahame Greene, Haruki Murakami, Terry Pratchett, Robert Rankin or PG Wodehouse.

I love films: Off the top of my head my favourite films are Bladerunner, Brazil, City of God, City of Lost Children, La Haine, The Lives of Others, O Brother Where Art Thou?, The Princess Bride, Most Pixar stuff, most Studio Ghibli stuff, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and the (original) Wicker Man but I'm sure there are tonnes I've forgotten.

Oh and The Punisher: Warzone. A film that has to be seen to be believed.

I hope that gives you some kind of idea of the type of stuff I like.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

The most amazing this I have seen in my lifetime?

This one will probably sound a bit cheesy and cod-poetic but I can still clearly remember camping out above a mangrove swamp somewhere in Western Australia with my family. Apparently it was quite a popular camping spot but it seemed like there was nobody for miles. We walked across the swamp at low tide and it was covered in beached jelly fish. Somebody caught and cooked a crab and I spent the evening sitting on top of a van watching a forest fire across the water.

That was pretty cool.

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Laos, Mongolia, New Zealand, Russian Federation, Spain, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, United Kingdom

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