About me

I was born in Belfast and have lived most of my life in England and Holland, although I’ve also spent time in Germany, the US, and, latterly, Spain and France.

I studied music and took trombone lessons and subsequently taught here (non-Western musics) and here. Later in my spare time I picked up an MA in ethnopoliticky stuff, an MSc in system design (my thesis has turned up here) and a Dutch-English translation diploma. I passed my cycling proficiency certificate on the second attempt and have never looked back (that’s why I failed first time).

I worked for a variety of start-ups and wind-downs in entertainment (Warner), industrial and utility energy generation, supply chain management software, bioinformatics, and merchant banking (Kleinwort Benson) in Germany, Holland, the US and England. Bits and bobs included technology consulting and speechwriting for several centre-left political parties, a leading figure in one of which has taken to introducing me to people as the future Dutch ambassador to Mars.

My parallel career in music included directing male-voice choir Chop Suey and the Blowjobs, playing trombone round half Europe, a successful drag act, and writing arrangements and original music for theatre, bigbands, choirs and barrel organ. I performed (in the best possible taste) at a Dutch stripclub, represented Holland at a Swedish folk festival, and once narrowly escaped abduction while playing with Chick Corea on a boat in the Caribbean. For a short period I cornered the Dutch market for music for farmers’ bands.

My English and Dutch are excellent, and I also speak good Spanish, reasonable German, French and Catalan, and dribs and drabs of most other Romance and Germanic languages/dialects and the odd bit of Arabic and several Bantu languages. I can recite Kurt Schwitters’ Sonate in Urlauten from memory.

Apart from the services provided via Oreneta, I offer city and countryside walks in the western Mediterranean via FollowTheBaldie.com, and I also do various musical stuff.

Talk to me here.