I code for fun and because I need mental stimulation. I started in the early 70s punching out Fortran programs on 40-column punch cards, and sending them to Imperial College, London, to be run on their IBM7094 computer (which had all of 32kwords of core memory! These days I work as a software engineer on communication quality data.

I play chess on freechess.org. I play jazz, blues and all sorts of stuff on piano and alto sax, and traditional music from various cultures on tin whistles. I enjoy clearing thorny vegetation by hand with a machete. When the fickle Irish weather plays ball, I like to go paragliding in the hills. I love cooking and preserving food, making jams, chutneys, marmalades, pickles too. And growing trees, vegetables and other interesting plants both outside and in my conservatory.