Special Interests
Long Standing Obsessions (Page 2)
Contents
Television
- Earliest television memory: being scared witless by the ATV idents;
- Favourite television programmes: Only Fools and Horses, Hi-de-Hi, 'Allo 'Allo, Life on Mars and Harry Hill's TV Burp;
- Televisual guilty pleasures: Road Wars: Lee Boardman's offbeat and blunt comments well and truly make the programme a 'must watch'; and reruns of 3-2-1;
- Most likely to say: 'Lovely Jubbly', 'Cushty' or 'I feel like Chicken Tonight';
- Least likely to say: 'Bring on the wall!'.
I have often said to fellow comrades, over how little television I have watched. However, television is another long-standing obsession, of similar length to public transport. In fact, I would say longer than public transport by two years.
From 1982, I was fascinated by the idents used by ITV franchise holders (for example: Anglia's steel statuette, or Yorkshire Television's flying 'Y' as seen on '3-2-1'). Some even used to frighten me, with the old ATV ident one example. By the age of five, I was one of a select minority of five year-olds able to recognise the TV-am and Granada logos as well as the shape of the British Isles. Even fewer woke up to see 'Daybreak' on TV-am or the Open University programmes!
Thanks to the internet, I had been 'reunited' by these old logos, and get shivers from the ATV ident. Thanks to Tim Berners-Lee, I am able to think 'I used to scream at that'.
Stalybridge Celtic
- High point: Stuart Locke's 94th minute penalty winner against Droylsden (2000 - 2001 season);
- Low point: quite a few but losing 7 - 3 to Hyde United on New Year's Day 2007 is down there;
- Most surreal moment: 25th October 2007, the Setanta Shield First Round tie against Blyth Spartans: four streakers, a penalty shoot-out and a floodlight failure!;
- Favourite away trips: Alfreton Town and Worcester City (pubs); Workington (Lake District views) and Blyth Spartans (for the A1(M) and The Angel of the North en route);
- Best away grounds: AFC Telford United (puts some League grounds to shame), King's Lynn (lovable timewarp) and Mossley (great view of the Pennine foothills).
This obsession has lasted for just over ten years. As an avid supporter of this non-league side, I have seen my fair share of home games from friendlies to the F.A. Cup Second Round proper. My first 'Bridge game was a GM Vauxhall Conference fixture on the 26 November 1994, against Woking. Lenny Dennis opened the scoring for Woking, but Paul Clayton and Robert Jackson (through a penalty) replied for Stalybridge Celtic, with a 2-1 victory.
I have also travelled to a few away games, including friendlies. I have been to the bright lights of South Elmsall. Plus, I have walked for thirty-five minutes in near darkness to the nearest railway station from one ground (off the M53 motorway). Why do I do this? There is more to following non league football than the ninety minutes on the pitch. Firstly, there's the craic of drinking with away fans (impossible with any Football League or Barclays Premier League game). Secondly, visiting idiosyncratic grounds run by locals rather than venture capitalists or FTSE shareholders. The other is just travelling to the games, whether its an overcrowded train or a hired minibus with a dozen other fans.
Computers
- First PC used: BBC Model B Micro (1985 - 1991);
- Favourite games: 3D Deathchase (ZX Spectrum), Sensible World of Soccer (Amiga), Dropzone (Commodore 64) and any card game of some description (Windows/Linux/Mac OS X/Commodore 64);
- Computing Heroes: Linus Torvalds, Alan Turing, Sir Clive Sinclair, Steve Jobs, Jeff Minter, Apple, Google and Jack Tramiel;
- Computing Zeroes: spyware authors, Phorm, DRM, the IE6 web browser and binary digits;
- Most indispensible piece of software: Firefox 7.0 with the Web Developer, No Script/Adblock Plus and Google toolbars.
My first experience of computing began the same way as most British children of the 1980s. This was through school, with the BBC Model B, playing computer games. By 1990, I got into the Acorn Archimedes and the Commodore 64. A further addition to the repertoire was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k model. In my last two decades, I had gone from the BBC Model B to the PC and the Apple Macintosh.
My taste in computer games are pretty old fashioned, with 3D Deathchase and Arkanoid my favourites. On a more esoteric note, I also like Sheep in Space and Attack of the Mutant Camels by Jeff Minter.
For over six years, I have been gainfully employed as a search engine consultant. Thanks to my current job, I now spend more than fifty percent of my waking life in front of a computer screen. This duration takes into account the time I spend computing at home.
My main interest in computing lies in cyberspace, with my most passionate interests in website accessibility, the semantic web and CSS. Lately, I have gained great interest in tableless layouts, XHTML 1.0 and HTML 4.01 Strict. Another area which interests me in cross browser compatibility, the art of making your site work in all browsers. This version of the Stuart Vallantine Web Experience (coincidentally) extols these beliefs.
I am also an Apple Mac enthusiast and proud user, also gaining further interest in Linux operating systems.
