- I dislike the sound of my own (recorded) voice. It always sounds deeper and more plummy than I expect.
- I have been able to pronounce the Welsh place name ‘Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobyllllantysiliogogogoch’ from the age of five. Far from being a useless talent, this once got my family free parking (not once, but twice) in Beaumaris. Such are the benefits of being a precocious child.
- I was able to type LlanfairPG etc from memory.
- When I was thirteen, I was broadcast on BBC Radio Essex on Christmas Day, reading from The Wind in the Willows (Chapter 5, the bit about the carol singers). I’ve never read the rest of the book.
- I could operate a 35mm cinema projector before I could drive.
- I have visited every place on the (UK/London) Monopoly board.
- I can trace my interest in artifical intelligence to the March 1987 issue of Scientific American, and A.K. Dewdney’s article on Braitenberg’s book Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology. For my electronics A level, I built an artificial neural network out of op amps. I still have it in a box somewhere.
- I suffer from clinical levels of l’esprit d’escalier.
- I like every cheese except gjetost.
- My ideal home would be earth-sheltered.