Far more than anyone can possibly wish to know about me, really.
Or, In which we are introduced. (Don’t you know what ‘ther’ means?)
This is a Welcoming Post, insofar as I’m particularly welcoming. Oh, I’m not, really, a Completely Horrid Person: it’s merely that I prefer dogs and horses to people, commonly, and books to anyone and anything save perhaps dogs and horses. This may be why I Am Much Nicer Online Than In Person.
ETA: Perhaps the most important thing that ought to be known, as it appears to be a deal-breaker (ghastly Americanism) for many people in fandom (particularly as I am making this edit on 7 November 2012, ahem, and for cause), is that whilst I tend to keep my political opinions to myself or to a dedicated (and relatively desultoryGladstonianliberaltory account), I am a Classical Liberal, which, nowadays, puts me in the Conservative Party, although I despise its current leaders (if you can call them that), modernising trimmers, huggie-hooders, hoodie-huggers, Wets, anti-Thatcherites, and Cameroonian poons and oiks. If you must know, that means that I believe in free men, free minds, and free markets; despise tyrannies of the Left as of the Right; believe the UK wants to be out of the EU immediately; and judge foreigners and foreign leaders, Americans included, solely by whether they are or are not well-disposed towards the interests of Crown and country. Again, I do not spend a great deal of time at this particular account on politics and economics (or indeed philosophy, if you're a PPE sort of person); I equally shan’t accept that I, because my views are different to those prevalent in fandom, I ought not to be able to speak as freely as the rest of you, or want to conceal my views so as to Get On in Fandom Society (further note: I am a proud Betjemaniac), or must Mind My Tone. My friends in fandom (as in life) range from Reaganites to noted singers of the Red Flag, and I am tolerant of all views, although not willing to pretend I do not think some of them to be damned silly. If you are not thus tolerant, or conceive that all fen must think alike or, if they do not, must keep silent, it should probably save heartache for all concerned if you do not friend me to begin with, few if any of my posts being locked in any event.
I’ve a blog in the steerage class of the Torygraph, a Twitter feed, and a Last.FM account (I expect I’ll also succumb to Spotify in due course). What I say there and who I follow and who follow me and what I listen to gives you a shockingly accurate measure of me. I am slowly (necessarily so) putting bits of my library on Facebook, and the whole boiling is probably all too revelatory. Or reveal-a-Tory.
I am a partner in Bapton Books and the author of Sensible Places: essays on place, time, & countryside; The Confidence of the House: May 1940; co-author of The Transatlantic Disputations: Essays & Observations and When That Great Ship Went Down: the legal and political repercussions of the loss of RMS Titanic; and co-editor and co-annotator of The Complete Mowgli Stories, Duly Annotated, and The Annotated Wind in the Willows, for Adults and Sensible Children (or, possibly, Children and Sensible Adults), all of which are available in Amazon Kindle editions, UK and US.
The best advice I ever had of Tom Strathclyde was, Always use an American ISP, they’ve civil rights over there. Sometimes I do just as he advised.
Out of localism, I support Hearts and Pompey. Although mine is the C of E side of the family, I support Tottenham (COYS!) as heartily as do my Jewish cousins. For obvious reasons, I support Trowbridge Tigers in the GFSN.
Why, yes, I am as bent and as pre-decimalisation as a nine bob note.
So much for footer (why the Wall Game never became the great international sport instead, I’ll never know). It has its merits. But, really, there’s only one game, truly, and truly it is the beautiful game: Cricket.
Whilst one lives in hope that, some day, Wilts will no longer be a minor county, one supports ad interim Glos and Hants and Somerset.
I am a fanatic about cricket: be warned. Unwary American friends have been seduced into it by my agency.
When I am absent and off-line, as my friends will attest, it may mean I am writing. Equally, it may mean I am Engaged in Rural Pursuits (no, not fit and likely lads, though there’s always time for them: I’ll make time). Or I may, as season dictates, be hunting, shooting, or angling. Or beekeeping or breeding Clumbers or down the local for a pint. I may be twitching, or being a steam railways anorak.
The protective colouration of tweeds and an interest in field sports saved me from being recognised as an æsthete who wanted to be debagged and tossed into Mercury pond: that and being a basso despite being on the small, pink side, as I yet am. (My American friends who are fond of the programme are Glee-ful to say that I resemble even now, if aged, a Tory, British, blond, floppy-haired Kurt Hummel / Chris Colfer - yes, Femme and Noe, that is to your address.)
I am rather firmly convinced, in my darker moments, that I am the only non-grandee Tory in the modern Conservative Party and the last living orthodox Anglican in the C of E.
My parents are dead now; I am in the uneasy position of being the head of the family, which in common parlance means disentangling the affairs of Uncle George, his wife my aunt Caroline, and their spawn, the Terrors of Lake (loyally named Anne, Mary, James, and Richard). Uncle George is most famous amongst my friends for having said, of a trip to the Continent, that the scenery was quite nice and the French were actually tolerable, but the food was, well, frightfully French. Sometimes one despairs.
And that I think is more than enough to be going on with. Poke about: you’ll find God knows what.
This is a Welcoming Post, insofar as I’m particularly welcoming. Oh, I’m not, really, a Completely Horrid Person: it’s merely that I prefer dogs and horses to people, commonly, and books to anyone and anything save perhaps dogs and horses. This may be why I Am Much Nicer Online Than In Person.
ETA: Perhaps the most important thing that ought to be known, as it appears to be a deal-breaker (ghastly Americanism) for many people in fandom (particularly as I am making this edit on 7 November 2012, ahem, and for cause), is that whilst I tend to keep my political opinions to myself or to a dedicated (and relatively desultoryGladstonianliberaltory account), I am a Classical Liberal, which, nowadays, puts me in the Conservative Party, although I despise its current leaders (if you can call them that), modernising trimmers, huggie-hooders, hoodie-huggers, Wets, anti-Thatcherites, and Cameroonian poons and oiks. If you must know, that means that I believe in free men, free minds, and free markets; despise tyrannies of the Left as of the Right; believe the UK wants to be out of the EU immediately; and judge foreigners and foreign leaders, Americans included, solely by whether they are or are not well-disposed towards the interests of Crown and country. Again, I do not spend a great deal of time at this particular account on politics and economics (or indeed philosophy, if you're a PPE sort of person); I equally shan’t accept that I, because my views are different to those prevalent in fandom, I ought not to be able to speak as freely as the rest of you, or want to conceal my views so as to Get On in Fandom Society (further note: I am a proud Betjemaniac), or must Mind My Tone. My friends in fandom (as in life) range from Reaganites to noted singers of the Red Flag, and I am tolerant of all views, although not willing to pretend I do not think some of them to be damned silly. If you are not thus tolerant, or conceive that all fen must think alike or, if they do not, must keep silent, it should probably save heartache for all concerned if you do not friend me to begin with, few if any of my posts being locked in any event.
I’ve a blog in the steerage class of the Torygraph, a Twitter feed, and a Last.FM account (I expect I’ll also succumb to Spotify in due course). What I say there and who I follow and who follow me and what I listen to gives you a shockingly accurate measure of me. I am slowly (necessarily so) putting bits of my library on Facebook, and the whole boiling is probably all too revelatory. Or reveal-a-Tory.
I am a partner in Bapton Books and the author of Sensible Places: essays on place, time, & countryside; The Confidence of the House: May 1940; co-author of The Transatlantic Disputations: Essays & Observations and When That Great Ship Went Down: the legal and political repercussions of the loss of RMS Titanic; and co-editor and co-annotator of The Complete Mowgli Stories, Duly Annotated, and The Annotated Wind in the Willows, for Adults and Sensible Children (or, possibly, Children and Sensible Adults), all of which are available in Amazon Kindle editions, UK and US.
The best advice I ever had of Tom Strathclyde was, Always use an American ISP, they’ve civil rights over there. Sometimes I do just as he advised.
Out of localism, I support Hearts and Pompey. Although mine is the C of E side of the family, I support Tottenham (COYS!) as heartily as do my Jewish cousins. For obvious reasons, I support Trowbridge Tigers in the GFSN.
Why, yes, I am as bent and as pre-decimalisation as a nine bob note.
So much for footer (why the Wall Game never became the great international sport instead, I’ll never know). It has its merits. But, really, there’s only one game, truly, and truly it is the beautiful game: Cricket.
Whilst one lives in hope that, some day, Wilts will no longer be a minor county, one supports ad interim Glos and Hants and Somerset.
I am a fanatic about cricket: be warned. Unwary American friends have been seduced into it by my agency.
When I am absent and off-line, as my friends will attest, it may mean I am writing. Equally, it may mean I am Engaged in Rural Pursuits (no, not fit and likely lads, though there’s always time for them: I’ll make time). Or I may, as season dictates, be hunting, shooting, or angling. Or beekeeping or breeding Clumbers or down the local for a pint. I may be twitching, or being a steam railways anorak.
The protective colouration of tweeds and an interest in field sports saved me from being recognised as an æsthete who wanted to be debagged and tossed into Mercury pond: that and being a basso despite being on the small, pink side, as I yet am. (My American friends who are fond of the programme are Glee-ful to say that I resemble even now, if aged, a Tory, British, blond, floppy-haired Kurt Hummel / Chris Colfer - yes, Femme and Noe, that is to your address.)
I am rather firmly convinced, in my darker moments, that I am the only non-grandee Tory in the modern Conservative Party and the last living orthodox Anglican in the C of E.
My parents are dead now; I am in the uneasy position of being the head of the family, which in common parlance means disentangling the affairs of Uncle George, his wife my aunt Caroline, and their spawn, the Terrors of Lake (loyally named Anne, Mary, James, and Richard). Uncle George is most famous amongst my friends for having said, of a trip to the Continent, that the scenery was quite nice and the French were actually tolerable, but the food was, well, frightfully French. Sometimes one despairs.
And that I think is more than enough to be going on with. Poke about: you’ll find God knows what.