This maverick muser had a thoroughly middle-class Brit upbringing: home and schools in Surrey, further education in Bristol and Dundee.
On return to London discovered the disc sport of Ultimate, which took over my life for some 15 years. Played to international level, travelled the world, made a load of friends, had bucketfuls of fun and mischief aplenty. Paying for it now though (knees).
I’ve written more about Ultimate and my love of the sport elsewhere . . .
On-field performances notwithstanding, perhaps my proudest moment was being nominated by both teams to be an ‘observer’ (a sort of line judge-cum-dispute resolver) at the USA v Sweden final of the 1994 World Championships—respect from the world’s best, it doesn’t get much better!
By now I was well into my journey of reading, study and research around stuff like ‘who the hell [euphemism] are we?’ ‘how the hell did we get here?’ ‘what the hell for?’ ‘who the hell’s in charge?’ and so on.
Meanwhile the jobs came and went: a wine magazine, a sports marketing company, a deer farm, and then delivering cars.
It was meeting a Swiss player during a boat party at the annual Geneva tournament that finally took me overseas, to live with her.
In the end that didn’t take, but I did get offered a job with one of the UN agencies there, working on databases.
Long story short, I ended up co-founding the agency’s first digital team, worked with some hugely talented people, and stayed with them for some 25 years, first in Geneva, then in Copenhagen.
Now I’m retired, living in southern England, and in training to be a recluse.
Bless you all. Salu!
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