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Life I work as a Software Developer with Fujitsu Services in Bracknell, Berkshire in the Thames Valley of England, and in September 2006 I reached the landmark age of sixty entitling me to a bus pass.  It's the first time I've earned any such concession; there were no student concessions when I was young, but I feel slightly guilty travelling for free just because I'm suddenly 'old'. My first school was Saint Mary's Convent in Wednesbury, now West Midlands. For most of the time I was one of four or five boys in a class of thirty.  It was quite a change to go from a small school in which most of the pupils were girls to an all boys senior school! Which I did when I was eleven and attended Queen Mary's Grammar School in Walsall, West Midlands. It was founded in 1554 when Queen Mary Tudor visited the town. I loved acting in the annual Shakespeare production of the Dramatic Society, playing Ophelia and Lady Macbeth (remember it was a boys only school), Clarence (Richard III), Marc Anthony (Julius Caesar) and Hector (Troilus & Cressida), the latter being very strange casting - I was thin and not at all athletic - Thersites is what wanted. In 1965 I joined one of the earliest Computer Science Honours degree courses in the UK at what is now Wolverhampton University. I was sponsored at college by ICT which became ICL in 1968 and Fujitsu Services in 2002. On graduation I joined the company in Putney, West London, and apart from a period of two years in the mid-seventies with ATV Management Services in London, my whole career has been with ICL/Fujitsu. In November 1975 my sister Kate introduced me to Gaynor. Kate and Gaynor worked together as dental nurses, and Kate thought we had photography in common and invited us to dinner. When we met we found many more things in common, and we were married the following August. The best thing that ever happened to me. Kate moved to Brighton on England's south coast in 1999. She has three great kids: Kimberley, Adam and Mark, the eldest who with his lovely partner Zena lives in Dubai. Adam has set up a social web site called Our Local Bar that you might like to visit. Our Mom Joan lost her battle with cancer in 2001.  Our kind, wise Dad Terry was tragically killed in a car accident in 1974, and is still missed. The subjects in which I am most interested are computing and theatre.   Computing I built my first home computer, a NASCOM 1 from a kit in 1978. 1k RAM and 1k ROM, connected to a cassette recorder and TV. Writing Z80 machine code in binary, entered at the keyboard in Hex, it seemed like magic nevertheless. Since then I've had a Sinclair ZX80, a BBC Micro with which I was very happy for a number of years, an Atari ST1024 which I used for a few months before acquiring an ICL PC. I'm now happy with my fourth PC which hasn't quite yet become obsolete.   Theatre I've loved the theatre since childhood, encouraged by my late dad who formed a love of Shakespeare at school in Ireland. Gaynor and I visit the theatre whenever we find something interesting.  I read as much as I can about Shakespeare and the Globe playhouse where many of his plays were first performed. I am a Friend of Shakespeare's Globe, and see as many productions as I can at the reconstructed Globe playhouse on London's Bankside. I enjoyed the 2004 season as I have all the previous summers since 1997. Playgoing there can be very exciting. In the evenings I sometimes lurk on the humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare newsgroup.  The news group was originally created as a home for arguments about the authorship of Shakespeare's work, and these continue on a generally bad natured basis, with insults flying between those who fervently believe that Edward deVere, Earl of Oxford was responsible for the works, and those who cannot see why all the evidence pointing to 'the Stratfordian' should have been forged. I think my views are clear, but if you are interested look at the arguments.   Recent Theatre Visits Gaynor and I have never been interested in musicals, but thanks to the terrific Whatsonstage.com site led by Terri Paddick, we saw two in the summer of 2004.  A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the Royal National Theatre was great fun. Later in the summer we booked for Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Woman in White at London's Palace Theatre mainly because Charlotte Jones had adapted the Victorian Wilkie Collins' novel for the stage (and the tickets were £10 each thanks to the Travelex season).  Ms Jones wrote the wonderful Humble Boy for the National which we saw in 2002, and that was as mentally stimulating and enjoyable as Tom Stoppard, and we are big Stoppard fans.  I agreed with the critics that the music was not very memorable and Michael Crawford perhaps didn't need quite so much padding making him unrecognisable.  But we loved Trevor Nunn's production.  I remember a quote decades ago which said that if you come out of a musical whistling the sets then the show is in deep trouble, but the sets here are by William Dudley whose work we applauded in Stoppard's Coast of Utopia at the National and the Royal Court's Hitchcock Blonde.  Here the set consists of two moveable arcs of a cylinder on which computer produced images of rooms, a church interior, a country house and its estate are projected dynamically with a 3D effect as they move.  The wedding scene in which the altar and congregation turn swiftly on the stage revolve while the background turns synchronously, was truly cinematic. Several people have complained of motion sickness, but we loved it. I saw Michael Crawford twice on stage in the seventies.  He played Billy in the musical adaptation of Billy Liar, but earlier he appeared at the Wimbledon Theatre in a pre-West End tryout of No Sex Please, We're British.  I was already a fan after seeing him on TV in the sixties, but I can still see him literally running up the wall in that show. A true showman!  Strangely (or not) that show doesn't appear currently on his list of past productions.  In this show he plays a big character in every sense, but he is good actor enough to leave doubt as to the character's sincerity. You must make up your own mind about his Count Fosco.  A privilege to see a star doing his stuff without overwhelming the other players.  Of course no one could take their eyes off the white rat running up and down his arm during his big number! Maria Friedman is the star of the show and she is very good indeed.  Martin Crewes was very good as the young male lead, and it was great to see Edward Petherbridge who starred in the first London production of Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.  He is always a joy. What other recommendation can I give than to say we had a great night out, even though I can't sing anything but the set!   Listening I do enjoy some pop/rock music - Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and since my unsuccessful appearance on the British Channel 5 TV show Swapheads in 2002, I have come to appreciate Robbie Williams as a songwriter and great performer. When I listen to music I mostly listen to classical: Mahler, Richard Strauss, Wagner, Ravel, Mozart, especially his operas and Requiem, and especially Beethoven. Beethoven's late work I find particularly exciting. After being moved as a young teenager by the movie version of "West Side Story" I have lately come to appreciate the broad range of Leonard Bernstein's music.  I especially love "The Chichester Psalms". When walking or bussing to and from work, I listen to tapes of BBC Radio 4 programmes that Gaynor records for me. I also try to keep up with 'the everyday story of country folk' called "The Archers" on BBC Radio 4 the best talk radio in the world.     Home|Gaynor|Mike|Art|Theatre|Book Shop Updated 16th September 2007