About me – things I like (part one)

Like yesterday’s post, which was largely just about me, this is not an article about how to get stronger in your garage.  So if you’re looking for that sort of thing, you might want to check out the archives.  This is just to give you an idea of the sorts of things I like.  Just in case you like them too.

Coffee

I don’t know where I would be without the sacred bean of the gods.  I made my first cup of coffee after they taught us how to boil a kettle safely in cub-scouts and I haven’t looked back since.  For the first few years, I was a milky coffee drinker but, after sharing a flat at university with a friend who had a filter coffee machine, I soon switched to the black stuff.

Thick and treacly, deeply flavoured and strong enough to put you on a caffeine high for the better part of an afternoon, there is no beating real coffee as an aide to work or study.

 Science fiction

I have read my way through quite a few different genres over the years but I keep coming back to sci-fi.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe it’s because the first time I really enjoyed a book was when I read “A Stainless Steel Rat is Born” by Harry Harrison as a young teenager.  Or maybe it’s because I grew up watching Star Wars every Christmas.

Either way, despite a foray into biographies (I waded through some fascinating accounts of persons as diverse as T E Lawrence and Miles Davis), autobiographies (I can heartily recommend newsmen as a good starting point – John Sergeant and John Simpson being two of my favorites) and serious literature (I enjoyed Moby Dick, was quietly impressed by War and Peace and got depressed reading Middlemarch), I keep coming back to sci-fi.

In the last few years, I’ve really enjoyed working my way through whatever Iain M Banks writes, as well as picking up old classics by Joe Haldeman and Philip Dick.  It was a real event for me, though, when I discovered a new talent in fellow Brit China Mieville.

His first novel, Perdido Street Station is great fun and a breath of fresh air amidst all the copycat writers out there who are still writing quest fantasies involving young farm-boys becoming warriors.  The relationships he describes involve real people rather than cardboard cut-outs and the problems his protagonists face always have a realistic and relevant feel to them, despite the fantastic backdrop.

Mountains

I’ve said mountains rather than mountaineering because I don’t want to come across like some intrepid explorer who is determined to climb something that no-one else has ascended before.  It’s not the challenge that draws me to the mountains, it’s the views.  Some people who know me might be surprised that I haven’t listed photography as one of my “likes” but if you look at my albums, 95% of the photos are of mountain views.  The other 5% are probably of random bits and bobs for this blog…

This is a view of Ben Macdui, the second highest mountain in Scotland.  It’s in the Cairngorms, probably the largest area of pure wilderness in the UK (my geography is a bit sketchy so please forgive me if Knoydart happens to be a bit bigger).  We last went in May 2008 and the weather was cracking.

This is somewhere in the Alps, on the French side of Mont Blanc.  We were there in late June this year and had fairly mixed weather.  This was one of the good days…

There’s more but I think I’ll leave it for another post.  Stay tuned, if you’re still interested…

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