Hello hello, my name's Colin. I'm a friendly, hairy poet, performer and musician from the Highlands of Scotland (where the monster and the nature is). I just started working freelance, writing subtitles for movies and TV. In my spare time I write little one-man shows which have poetry, stories and songs in them.

In the summer I perform these at Fringe festivals in Europe, but for the next few years I'll spend the rest of my time in other seasons writing, working, traveling, looking for places to perform and meeting people along the way.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

My favourite thing about travelling is meeting people from a place. It's one of the best realisations you get from being on the move, that basically people are good and kind everywhere, but that every place you go to modulates that kindness and goodness and love, funnels it into different forms and expresses it differently. You see that most when you stay with someone.

When I travel I want to meet poets, performers, musicians, writers, artists, people I can talk to about creating art, people I can share art with, people with opinions and ideas about how to fit the world into that beautiful prism.

Of course, I'm not just on here to meet artists. I like people who know what they love and get excited about communicating that with the people around them.

Interests

• animals
• literature
• poetry
• theater
• music festivals
• music
• live music
• classical music
• electronic music
• biology
• languages
• language exchange
• theatre
• health
• poetry slam
• méxico
• graphic novels
• novels
• foreign languages
• mental health
• autism
• scotland
• novel
• reading novels

Music, Movies, and Books

The point of music for me is to relate to the wide spectra of feeling that humans have: so, different musics for different moods. I have a pretty varied taste and am very open to new recommendations. When I play music it normally comes out in a folky/jazzy way, depending on the instrument - if you can show me new styles, I'll absorb them through my ears and try to mimic them, I've got a good ear for mimicry and I'll probably try and pick up your accent too...

Movies is easier, I watch less of them but just lately I've been trying to see more. Inside Out and Paterson are two that have impressed me lately. I very much like Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, Akira Kurosawa, Chris Marker...

I love to read, I studied literature so I try and read lots of things! Right now I'm reading an old anthropology book called The Golden Bough. There's a really cool bit where he talks about ancient societies trying to catch the sun, hang on I'll write it in here:

'In the pass of the Peruvian Andes stand two ruined towers on opposite hills. Iron hooks are clamped into their walls for the purpose of stretching a net from one tower to the other. The net is intended to catch the sun.'

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I think I'm proudest of performing at the Edinburgh Fringe, coming off the two weeks before I was doing horribly long shifts at a wonderful but stressful job, and then I performed about 50 shows in three weeks. It was exhausting but I loved it. Same again next year :)

What I Can Share with Hosts

I will:

Listen to you
Be a fun and interesting person to have around
Tell you stories about the weird characters I know from my little village in Scotland
Play you your favourite songs on the piano
Share my awful German with you
Show you how to play the piano and/or guitar, or jam with you if you already know how
Amuse you by cracking shitty jokes

Countries I’ve Visited

Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada, England, Germany, Scotland