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At the time of writting, I'm a 24 year old long haired male/ethical vegan/fire performer/animal+human rights
activist/corperate
slave living in Coventry (UK). My life philosophy most closely resembles that of
Buddhism, but I am constantly reading, experiencing and modifying it as I go along. I have numerous hobbies, a few of which are
introduced here and in the rest of the pages of this site.
Recent History
I was born in 1981 in Yorkshire and have since lived in Scotland, West Sussex, Surrey, Essex and Dorset. I had a pretty normal
childhood till the age of 11 or so, didn't really enjoy school as a teenager, but then i'm pretty sceptical of anyone who claims they
did.
When I was 17, almost at the end of my teenage years, I came into the realisation that there really wasn't any point in living a life
where I waited for the dreams and goals that I aspired to without putting in any serious effort to achieve them.
From being in the first generation of kids to have an internet connection and with it access to mass amount of information on
alternative hobbies and lifestyles, my horizons and goals were expanded further than that of your average teenager and I just wasn't
content with a mediocre existance.
Combined with the amount of crappy TV and films these days that give teenagers a false impression of the idealogic life that all other
teenagers outside their town experience, I made a concerted effort to use the couple of years I had left to rectify my previously dull
existance. This was a real turning point in my life and looking back on it now, I achieved way more than I could have realistically
hoped.
I had first deviated from normality by evolving my music taste when i was 14 or 15 into non mainstream electronic music and 'rave'. I
lived close enough to London to faintly pick up pirate radio stations and spent countless afternoons in small record stores using the
decks. For years I spent most of my money for years on vinyl, before ever entering a club. Whilst doing so i'd often picked up and
read non commercial/underground magazines from the stores and decided that I really wanted to get involved with their production.
Unfortunatly being a spotty 17 year old geek who knew no one into the rave scene I didn't really have much to offer such people, until
by chance I found one of the larger magazines appealing for help creating a website. Luckily for me, one of the side effects of having
spent hundreds of sunny afternoons indoors on my computer was that I was more than qualified by this point to design websites, so
offered my services to them.
The magazine, GuilFIN, was at this point the main underground magazine in London and the South UK, with a readership of around 32,000.
After gathering the balls to take a trip up to a remote part of London to meet a group of strangers i'd in their 20s i'd contacted via
email to talk websites, I had the fortune to meet some of the nicest and most inspirational people i've ever come across. The monthly
magazine, paid for by a few hydroponics and festival adverts carried listings of environmental, animal/human rights campaigns/events
as well as festival, rave and music listings, reviews and news. Before the advent of the Internet it was pretty much the only source
for and what thousands of people in the scene relyed on for getting their information.
Through doing the website and socialising with the GuilFIN crew I met dozens (hundreds?) of cool people (all a lot older) and started
going to proper clubs for my sort of music in London, crazy house parties, festivals, campaign events etc. Within 6 months of being a
quiet, boring geek who listened to rave music, I webcast the launch party of the website I wrote - a huge warehouse party in central
London with 2500 people and a top line up of famous Psy Trance, Hardhouse and Drum'n'Bass DJs. I even worked in clubs in London before
I was 18, the look on people's faces at 5am in clubs/parties who assumed i was in my mid 20s and found out i was 17 is something i
won't forget in a hurry. The words "do you're parents know you are here" and "i wish i was doing this when i was 17" were, to the
delight of my ego, muttered many times.
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