View source for More About Me

By way of [[wikipedia:Full_disclosure|full disclosure]] I should also say I pay for this site myself, but do not make any significant financial profit from it. So this site is a shop window for research I’m doing as well as related work. Any opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily representative of my employer.

Unless stated otherwise, words, pictures, audio and video you find here are licensed under a CC-BY license, which requires attribution, but allows free redistribution (see below). So feel free to copy, distribute, transmit, remix and adapt work you find here, just give me credit and attribution by linking back to where you originally took the data from.

=== How did I get here? ===
Well I haven't been here forever. I failed all my exams at school and so became a worker at [[wikipedia:Blidworth|Blidworth Colliery]] in Nottinghamshire (Soap Box... you know, before [[wikipedia:Margaret_Thatcher|Thatcher]] [[wikipedia:UK_miners%27_strike_%281984-1985%29|wiped out a whole working community of a couple of hundred thousand in one stroke]]. Yes people unemployed are always acceptable as long as it's all done in the name of a free market, tell that to the Nuclear Industry, even if the European market, in fact all markets aren't truly free!). But while loads of people liked it I didn't, so I took some courses and got myself onto a degree program. And hey-presto here I am!

=== Personal Note ===
I live happily in Manchester (UK) with my artistic Armenian wife. I'm an active supporter of many charities, among them Greenpeace, Amnesty, MSF, and Oxfam. I've travelled solo through Europe, Eastern Europe, Turkey, and the Middle East - and most other places on research related activities. I'm a qualified motor boat helm, yachtsman, 4* kayaker, sub-aqua rescue diver (PADI), and a private pilot. And I like nothing better than a good curry and a good beer

=== Who Pays Me? ===
The University of Manchester are my main employer. I'm also paid a small amount for collaborations, however, all is bound up with the University of Manchester and so becomes indivisible. This is all; I receive no other payments.

=== What are my Politics? ===
I'm a paid up member of the Labour Party, the Fabian Society, and the University and College Union, as well as being a signatory to the [[wikipedia:Euston_Manifesto|Euston Manifesto]], I voted Remain! I'm reasonably ethical, global warming due to Greenhouse gases IS OCCURRING, all politicians are self serving and power hungry - just deal with it - we therefore have lots of control. Make changes to your own life don't complain about the things that governments aren't doing and then forget about it. You should take control of your own life.

=== Am I in a Union? ===
Yes, I'm a member of the [[wikipedia:University_and_College_Union|University and College Union (UCU)]]. The UCU trade union represents lecturers, professors and researchers, as well as administrative, library and computing staff in universities across the UK. We represent around 110, 000 academic and academic related staff in Further and Higher Education. I'm not particularly active in the union however I tend to be quite hard line (it's my NUM upbringing) in voting and industrial actions.

=== Charitable Giving ===
[http://www.unmillenniumproject.org The UN Millennium Project] refers to the repeated commitment of the world's governments to commit 0.7% of rich-countries Gross national product (GNP) to Official Development Assistance. Spurred by this target I give 3% of my Gross Salary to Charities specifically: League Against Cruel Sports, Oxfam, Greenpeace, Royal National Lifeboat Institute, Dr Hadwen Trust, Amnesty International, The Woodland Trust, Mind, The Stroke Association and Médecins Sans Frontières, among others.

=== Religious Leanings ===
<p>I'm pretty agnostic about religion and spirituality, although I am a 'big s' Stoic. I don't really believe in it but I'm fine if others do, maybe because I'm prepared to admit I may be wrong, well not really, but let's say I'd like to be wrong. I'm a vegetarian though!

[[category:About]]
[[category:General]]