CURRENT MISSION

Whittle down the very long list of things I want to do.

ABOUT ME

A healthy(ish) hedonist.

UK born and raised. North Wales, Manchester, Liverpool, Winchester, Cambridge and London are the bits I know best. Also lived in Corsica as a kid, and seen a fair of Western Europe, SE Asia, and Western USA.

More of a city person than a countryside person. Country trips are beautiful and a lot of fun but I couldn't live somewhere without the constant buzz of lots of very different people going about their lives.

I hate closing the door on opportunities or letting myself get too settled. The upside to this is that life is fun and unpredictable. The downside is that it's hard to make big life decisions which inevitably shut off other options, and it's easy to get stuck in indecision limbo.

PHILOSOPHY

Be as open and honest as possible with everyone.

Don't resent parts of people's personality which clash with your values - if you want someone in your life you have to accept them as a whole. I think that sounds a lot more obvious than it is in practice?

Be generous when you can. I'm realising more and more that overly generous/helpful people get more satisfaction out of life than people who just do their fair share and always keep score. It's an admirable way to live life and the positivity is infectious.

If you have dreams and aspirations, make sure they aren't things you'll get round to "one day". It can be hard making things happen, and I've been guilty of a lot of procrastinating in the past...

The biggest mistake in life isn't taking risks, it's wasting your time doing things which don't give you pleasure. Then again, doing a boring job just for the money is fine if you have an exit strategy, and/or worthwhile plans for the cash ;)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I joined just before heading off to Asia for a few months (April/May/June 2009) and met some cool people through CS on my travels. I did some hosting back in the UK in 2009, in Manchester, and got involved in the CS community and events there. Then dropped off the CS radar from 2010-2013 while living and working in London. I'm yet to surf someone else's couch!

It's great so far - I've had something in common with everyone I've met from CS, and have enjoyed the company of pretty much everyone.

Interests

Besides travel and meeting new people: skydiving, flying, climbing, snowboarding, watersports - I love trying new activities. Also photography and film watching.

Also a regular gym goer, and play some poker - mostly live Texas Holdem games.

• photography
• chocolate
• pub crawls
• flying
• traveling
• knitting
• poker
• skydiving
• snowboarding
• rock climbing

Music, Movies, and Books

Books: His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman is probably still my favourite. Now I tend to read mainly non-fiction. I don't read books that often though - I just browse wikipedia a lot :p

Films: Favourites include Memento, City of God, 28 days later, Life is Beautiful, Slumdog Millionaire. I love realism in films. The premise doesn't have to be realistic but the characters and relationships have to feel real. I like comedy when it's not slapstick, and decent blockbuster action films (Ocean's Eleven, Bourne, Bond etc)

Plus I love anticlimax! That's the main drawback of e.g. Bond films (although I do like lots of them...) You know Bond will be alive at the end, so there isn't any real tension in any scene where he's in danger. He'll always come out of it ok. Now, granted you can't do this in a franchise like James Bond films, but I love it when the scriptwriter has the balls to kill off a main character, or end a film in a very disjointed/ambiguous way. So long as it doesn't feel too contrived.

If I ever wrote a screenplay or a book, I'd probably resort to tossing a coin every now and then to decide which route to go down with the storyline, to keep it unpredictable.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Flying a loop and a stall turn while in control of a small propeller plane.

Also, sitting in a pub with a ton of couchsurfers learning a ton of things, from backgammon to knitting. It was just different.

Teach, Learn, Share

If you've never been skydiving and want to know about how to get into it, and what options there are, I can point you in the right direction. I'm an okay, relatively experienced poker player too.

I can also make, and teach you how to make, a damn delicious but very simple chocolate caramel slice :D and a few other dishes. A favourite is Thai larb, and it is very simple and very quick.

I'd love to learn very basic Mandarin (don't know any.)

Countries I’ve Visited

Cambodia, China, Finland, France, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United States, Viet Nam

Countries I’ve Lived In

France, United Kingdom

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