Where does this find you? Tell us the story of how you got there.

This finds me in Pembrokeshire, where I have lived with my family for just over 5 years, having moved out here from the lost city of Leicester, where I had been "passing through" for 25 years. Prior to that I spent my formative years in the wonderful county of Yorkshire, a place to which I would love to return.

Why do you moblog?

I was introduced to Moblog a couple and a half years ago by my friend The Tedster, who seemed to give up moblogging soon after I started. I continued because I enjoyed the comments my photos were receiving, and I also enjoyed the glimpses of other lives which moblog continually provides. One of the early "friends" I made on Moblog was Neutropenic Alex, and if anyone brought home to me the value of moblogging, he did!

What were you hoping not to be asked for interview52?

My age

Now answer it!

49 and a day

What is the most memorable thing you've ever had happen to you?

Children. Until I was 40 I was young, free and single. 9 years later I'm a broken old man with 4 children who can't afford a drink problem or a drug habit. Please give generously!

Who has been an inspiration to you? Why?

Tony Benn, a true Socialist, still.

What book would you recommend to your fellow mobloggers to read and why?

The Bible, and the complete works of Robert Burns.
Way back in the 90's, when I were a professional poet, I was booked to "do" a Burns Night. I tried to turn it down on the basis that I'm not Scottish, but the Braunstone Town Councillors were having none of it, so I went awa', and selected 6 Burns poems to perform. I did not even attempt a Scottish accent, so it's probably the only time the works of Robert Burns have been read in a Yorkshire Accent. There was a proper pipe band (all the way from Ashby-de-la-Zouche) and a lovely supper of Haggis wi'tatties and neeps, and the night was an unqualified success. At the end, as everything was being packed away, a very old lady came up and thanked me for "bringing Burns to life". She spoke very softly in a Scots accent. A year or so later I was talking to a friend called Clive Brett, who had been Mayor of Braunstone Town at the time of the concert. The old lady had been his mother, and had passed away not long after the concert. The only books she had ever owned in her long life had been the Bible and the collected works of Robert Burns.
Around that time also, something terrible and traumatic happened to me and a wonderful hospital Chaplain, Rev. Michael Forster, helped me through, and gave me a Bible.

What was your childhood obsession? What happened to it?

My bike. I'm still riding it.

Where do you go to my lovely, when you're alone in your head?

You're not alone in your head very often when you have children, but, like Hari before me, I'm alone in my head when I cycle, which is one of the main reasons it is my sole form of transport.

If you had to draw a moblog family (and friend) tree, who would you be linked to, and how?

I've met a few mobloggers in the flesh; the Pandairos in Crewe, and a healthy dollop of the Yorkshire Chapter in Leeds, along with Sir Findo Gask and SWMBO, who'd travelled all the way from Stoke! (wherever that may be). There are other mobloggers I'd like to meet, and hopefully I shall do one day. Being out on a limb in Pembrokeshire, one can feel a bit cut off sometimes. It's funny, but I have a very real fear of meeting new groups of people - I go through agonising panic attacks whenever I have to sit on a committee or anything similar, but meeting mobloggers isn't quite so intimidating. I'm hopefully going to be in London for a Sustrans meeting sometime in October, so hopefully I'll get to meet some of the southern chapter then if time allows.
I think I'm linked by a bikechain to 540air, Harimanjaro, Nige, Taniwha, Filbert Fox & Baggieboy, Dookerdoo, Toddy, Dhamaka... keep the pedals spinning, guys'n'gals!

Posted by parabolichobo