CURRENT MISSION

To meet the world and hope that we become the best of friends :P

ABOUT ME

I’m adventurous, generous, interesting, eccentric enough to give unusual ideas a go (often with amazing consequences), humorous, cultured, loyal and imaginative. I’m not everyone’s idea of a good time (who is?) but if all you really care about is someone who generally tries to treat others as he would want others to treat him, then I’m pretty hard to dislike. I’m my own person and while I would be lying if I said I never care what others think about me I never care enough to change if it’s not hurting anyone.

PHILOSOPHY

The best things you can do in life are those things that make good stories. The VERY best things you can do in life are those things that make good stories that others want to tell.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

At the moment I’m just trying to help out surfers, but hoping to surf myself a bit this coming summer!

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

I am still in the early days of my time with CS and though I am going travelling this summer, I am, for the moment, just offering my place to others - so no epic stories as yet! Nonetheless I think CS has been for me everything that CS is meant to be, which is to say a simple but effective way for people with a shared interest in adventure to make friends. I'm loving every minute of it.

Interests

Travel, friends, projects, philosophy, debate, psychology, food (the eating of, I cannot cook to save my life), writing, reading, hiking, gift-giving, films, video games, gadgets and being outside in general.

• arts
• writing
• books
• documentaries
• dining
• cooking
• aviation
• movies
• video games
• reading
• traveling
• drawing
• hiking
• psychology

Music, Movies, and Books

I love books and I love films (don’t ask me to choose a few favourites out of the ones I love because that’s like asking me to choose which puppy gets to live :P). Chances are we have both read/seen any book/film you are enthusiastic about and will end up discussing it in great depth at some point :P

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Although I am an avid traveller on a travel website, one of the best stories I have takes place in England and involves going to Gatwick Airport without getting on a plane.
Last year was my Dad’s seventy-fifth birthday. Eleven years ago my father had watched a BBC documentary entitled “Fragment of Genius” about severely autistic people, also known as “savants,” with absolutely extraordinary gifts. My Dad, for whom there is usually very little difference between a television program and a sedative, had watched the entire program, without falling asleep, particularly moved when an autistic artist, named Stephen Wiltshire, had been flown, for just a few short minutes, via helicopter, over central London only to, within three hours of touching down, draw a picture of London covering four square miles, including twelve major London landmarks, drawn to perspective and to scale. My Dad was so moved that he said aloud “if I was the pilot, I would have asked if I could have one of his pictures.” A few months before his seventy-fifth, the memory of this documentary came to mind as I was wondering what I should get my Dad for his, particularly special, upcoming birthday.
I managed to remember enough about the documentary that an internet search gave me the documentary’s name and a friend at the BBC found out for me where I could view a copy, albeit that the BBC were unable to sell me one. I was able to learn, from a viewing, the name of the helicopter company and once I was able to send the company a snapshot of the pilot, from a copy I was able to purchase from America (the BBC having sold the rights to an American company some years after the British airing). The company were able to tell me the pilot’s name and that he now worked for the Civil Aviation Authority.
Having internet searched Stephen Wiltshire and found that he had a gallery in London, I had been able to learn from his very courteous agent, Annette as to when Stephen would be in and had been able to obtain two prints of his London panorama, one of which I managed to have made out to my father before having a picture with Stephen Wiltshire.
I was then able to call the Civil Aviation Authority and ask the pilot’s PA if she would receive an email from me and, providing she did not find it too eccentric, forward it on to him. Fortunately she did not find it too eccentric and, as yet more luck would have it, neither did he.
On the twenty-eighth of June, my Dad’s actual birthday, although my Mum had taken him on holiday to Scotland, I travelled down to Gatwick to meet with the pilot and gave him a print in exchange for a photograph of the two of us with it. Stephen Wiltshire’s art always seems to bring out the best in everyone, for the security people, who, when I first entered the building, gave me a look as if trying to cut me in half, crowded around the picture as if it was newborn, once I had removed it from the bubble wrap.
Upon my Dad’s return from Scotland I showed him the documentary and (keeping other things out of sight) gave him a first present of a book of Wiltshire’s drawings that featured in the documentary, the inside of cover of which contained the picture of Stephen and me and the security pass that I had had to fill in to access the CAA. I then gave him the print and showed him the message after which I reminded him of his comment (he having said “I remember this bit” during the helicopter ride) and finally gave him the photo of me with the pilot, the full story and wished him a very happy birthday.

Teach, Learn, Share

"The way I see it, life is a collection of good things and bad things. The good things don't necessarily soften that bad but neither do the bad thing necessarily spoil the good or make them unimportant"(Richard Curtis)

Countries I’ve Visited

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United States, Vatican City State

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, United Kingdom

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